Distribution of British Animals. 29$ 
As furnishing articles of subsistence or luxury for the 
table, the efforts of the chace have been long directed against 
the three species of deer , with which the country former- 
ly abounded. In the days of Lesley, the pursuit of the 
stag, fallow-deer, and roe (“ cervum, damam aut capream”), by 
means of blood-hounds and greyhounds, constituted the no- 
blest sport. And when he informs us, that from 500 to 1000 
were sometimes slain at a hunting-match, we cease to be sur- 
prised at the diminution of the breed. Were it not for pre- 
served forests, indeed, the native races would soon be extin- 
guished. 
The pursuit of several of our native animals, for the sake of 
their fur , has long been a favourite object with the hunter, and 
the articles of export which it has furnished have been deemed 
worthy of legislative enactments. The Otter, the Martin, and 
the Polecat, have in consequence been reduced within narrow 
bounds. 
Noxious quadrupeds, or such as are injurious to the poultry- 
yard, or the fold, as the Wild-Cat and Fox, have in like manner, 
in recent times, been greatly reduced in numbers. About the 
middle of last century, several fox-hunters, (by trade), were 
to be met with, each keeping a small pack of well-trained hounds, 
frequenting, periodically, different districts of the country, so- 
journing for a few days at the house of a farmer, where having 
destroyed the vermin of the neighbourhood, and received a small 
recompence in money, they departed to another quarter, where 
their services were needed and expected. But the hireling fox- 
hunter is not now a trade which the state of the country requires*. 
His employment has passed into the hands of gentlemen, and 
ceasing to be viewed as mean or vulgar, is entered upon with 
zeal, as an agreeable and athletic exercise. But, in some places, 
the objects of the sport have become so scarce, that it is neces- 
sary to import the victims from the yet half-reclaimed districts. 
Badgers appear, likewise, at a former period, to have been 
more numerous than at present. There are several places, 
the appellations of which have the prefix Brock or Badger, at- 
* Fox-hunters are still employed in Morven, Isle of Skye, and other Highland 
districts.—EDiT. 
