456 
Reindeer, or Irish Elks,^‘‘ might perhaps he tolerated — at a distance. 
A few Red Deer remain on the wilds of Exmoor, and it is left to 
the Eox, the Badger, and the Otter, together with many smaller 
quadrupeds, to represent the wild animals of this couniry.t 
The presence of both plants and animals is perpetuated in some 
of our village names, as Mr. W. H. Bidwell has pointed out. 
We may, however, picture the land, when Nature had it all her 
own way, as for the most part thickly covered with wood, -with here 
and there wide stretches of heath land, or open park-like tracts of 
grass land, feeding grounds for the herds of deer and cattle. The 
river valleys were for the most part swampy tracts. 
In Norfolk there remains no forest of historic interest, although I 
have been informed that remnants of old woodland occur iu the 
parishes of Thursford, Thurning, and Ilargham ; while the name of 
Holt speaks forcibly of the wooded character of its neighbourhood, 
which is still kept up by numerous plantations. In certain situations, 
as in the woody dells near Sherringham, on the wild heath land of 
Edgefield or Marsham, and even close to Norwich in a part of 
klousehold called Ossian Vale, we may attempt to realize the original 
state of the country, and may lose ourselves in a reverie until the 
spell is suddenly broken, as I think one writer has elsewhere told, 
by tbe whistle of some not far distant engine — and thus we come to 
think of all that man has done, or to the consideration of the last 
part of our subject. 
III. Influence of Man, &c. 
Of Norfolk, as we now see it, little but the contours are natural ; 
fields, hedgerows, plantations, roads, railways, reservoirs, towns, 
and villages mark the progress and influence of man. Even the 
river-courses are artificially modified. 
* Cervus merjaceros was met with at Hilgay. Owen, Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soc. vol. iv. p. 44. 
t Gilbert White relates that “General Howe turned out some German 
Wild Boars and Sows in his forests [Ayles Holt in Hampshire] to the great 
terror of the neighbourhood ; and at one time, a wild Bull or Buffalo : but 
the country rose upon them, and destroyed them.” 
t Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. iii. p. 212. 
