237 
Dr Fleming on the Geological Deluge. 
destroyed such powerful animals as the elephants and rhinoceros, 
as well as the hysena, from the impenetrable fastnesses of the 
great Hercynian forest, when animals of the same kind have 
not yet ceased to abound in the woods of India, and the wilds 
of Africa, in spite of a farther persecution of nearly two thou- 
sand years ?” Quite probable. The objection is specious, not 
solid. Savages are good huntsmen ; and those which inhabited 
the west of Europe were not destitute of energy, as the Romans 
found to their cost. Those of temperate and cold climates, must 
follow the chase eagerly, Ceres to them being niggardly. They, 
too, can commit their depredations with greater effect, aided by 
the seasons, and the migrations consequent on the changes there- 
of. But independent of these explanations, I too may ask, 
How have the wolf, and the bear, and the beaver been extirpated 
from Britain, while, in the neighbouring continent, “ after a far- 
ther persecution,’ 1 they still maintain their ground. The same 
explanation must apply to both cases, — the different facilities of 
the sportsman to gain his object. 
“ 4. Surely the theory of their extinction by the savage na- 
tives, preceding the Roman invasion of these countries, is a mat- 
ter of the highest improbability ; their existence at that time, 
and subsequent extirpation, is, in the utter silence of Caesar and 
Tacitus, and all later historians, and even of tradition, a moral 
impossibility.” I deny that the natives were savages at the pe- 
riod of the Roman invasion ; and let the appeal be made to 
the writings of Caesar and Tacitus. The silence of the Roman 
historians as to the destruction of native animals is of little mo- 
ment. The process of extirpation is gradual, and had commenc- 
ed long before Romulus and Remus had a being, or the wolf 
that suckled them. The historians were otherwise occupied ; 
Caesar, in recording his own achievements, and Tacitus in laud- 
ing the deeds of Agricola, and fabricating speeches for Galga- 
cus. As for tradition, the learned professor rejects the testimony 
of the Niebelungen, a poem of the 13th century, which seems 
to refer to these extinct animals, because it records, at the same 
time, some superstitious notions of the sera in which it was writ- 
ten. What will become of poor Samuel Johnson’s Tour a few 
centuries hence, with its second sight 9 
There is not in the whole range of this question, a single fact, 
vol. xiv. is T o. 28. aphil 1826. o. 
