146 
and the natives of the Andes. Even the tiger kind, 
as the Indian cheeta, has been rendered subservient 
to man’s uses; and the ferret and the otter. 
The injuries of beasts of prey to man are at this 
time of the lowest class in Britain. The fox occa- 
sionally invades our hen-roosts, and devours a few 
hares, rabbits, pheasants, and young partridges; but 
he is a privileged and protected marauder, and 
would be extirpated in the course of a year, were 
he not under the unmerciful guardianship of the 
chase-loving squirearchy. The stoat, the weasel, 
and the polecat; the rare pine-marten, the rat, the 
mole, the mouse, and the otter, are guilty of small 
injuries, and forfeit their lives accordingly; but they 
cause no fear for our persons. The bite of the rat is 
said to be venomous; but probably the venom may 
be the result of saliva flowing into a wound when 
the animal is highly excited by fear or fury, which 
gives a peculiarly fatal character to the bite of dogs, 
foxes, and cats, in causing hydrophobia ;—more 
dreadful than the speedier and more tranquil death- 
stroke of the cobra di capello. 
Britain was, however, in its early days, so much 
infested by wolves, that king Edgar is said to have 
commuted several punishments into a fine of a num- 
ber of wolves’ tongues from each criminal; and he 
converted a heavy tax on a prince of Wales into an 
annual tribute of 300 wolves’ heads. “ It appears 
from Hollinshed that wolves were very noxious to 
the flocks in Scotland in 1577; nor were they en- 
