53 
THE EXTINCT BRITISH WOLF. 
By J. E. HARTING, E.L.S., E.Z.S. 
mHE interest which attaches to the history of extinct British 
animals can only be equalled by the regret which must 
be felt, by all true naturalists, at their disappearance beyond 
recall from our fauna. It seems almost incredible that the 
number of wild animals which have become extinct in the 
British Islands should equal, if it does not exceed, the number 
of the still existing forms with which we are familiar. And 
yet if we exclude from consideration the Chiroptera and the 
marine mammalia, this is not far from the truth. 
Naming them at random, and commencing with the largest, 
the extinct British species are — the mammoth, elephant, rhino- 
ceros (two, if not three species), hippopotamus, primaeval ox, 
longfronted ox, aurochs, musk ox, Irish elk, reindeer, wild boar, 
brown bear, grizzly bear, great cave bear, lion, sabre-toothed 
lion, leopard or panther, hyaena, spotted hyaena, lynx, wolf, 
arctic fox, glutton, beaver, lemming, crane, and bustard. The 
ferce naturce still existing in Great Britain are — the red deer, 
the roe deer, fallow deer (introduced), wild white cattle, the 
hare, Alpine hare, rabbit, hedgehog, mole, shrew (three species), 
badger, otter, weasel, stoat, polecat, common marten, pine 
marten, wild cat, fox, squirrel, dormouse, harvest mouse, long- 
tailed field mouse, house mouse, black rat, brown rat, water 
vole, short-tailed vole, and bank vole. 
One of the few wild animals which survived to within his- 
toric times, and hence one of the last to disappear, was the 
wolf, a creature whose ferocious and bloodthirsty nature caused 
it to be speedily singled out for extermination by the early 
English legislators. 
To judge by the osteological remains which the researches 
of geologists have brought to light, there was perhaps scarcely 
a county in England or Wales in which, at one time or another, 
wolves did not abound, while in Scotland and Ireland they 
must have been even still more numerous. 
The vast tracts of unreclaimed forest land which formerly 
