Richardson, he gives the following additional evidence:--"In the
collection of the late Mr Johnston, of Down, which had been left by his
uncle, an attorney, and in which everything was labelled with the
accuracy and precision of that profession, is a small brass spear, with
a piece of wood still in the socket, with a label, stating it to have
been found in a marl-pit, among the bones of a deer. An excise-officer
told me that he saw, found in a marl-pit, at Mentrim in Meath, the
skeleton of a deer, and a man, and a long knife: the latter, I believe,
is rather a short sword, now, I think, in the collection of Mr Petrie,
of Dublin, who told me that some such tradition had accompanied it into
his possession.... Dr Martin informs me that on the banks of the river
Suir, near Portland, Waterford, and on nearly every farm, are found,
near springs, spaces of frequently seventy feet in diameter, consisting
of stones, broken up as if for roads, and lying together in a mass.
These stones were evidently purposely broken, and all much of one size,
and are charred. These spaces are many feet in depth. The tradition
respecting them is current among the peasantry, that here in olden time,
a great deer was killed and baked in these stone-pits, the stones having
been previously heated like a kiln, and they also distinguish the animal
as the 'Irish Elk.' These places are called in Irish by a name
signifying the 'Buck's Den.'"
[Illustration: SPEARING THE ANCIENT ELK.]
From all these testimonies combined, can we hesitate a moment in
believing that the Giant Deer was an inhabitant of Ireland since its
colonisation by man? It seems to me that its extinction cannot have
taken place more than a thousand years ago. Perhaps at the very time
that Caesar invaded Britain the Celts in the sister isle were milking and
slaughtering their female elks, domesticated in their cattlepens of
granite, and hunting the proud-antlered male with their flint arrows and
lances. It would appear, that the mode of hunting him was to chase and
terrify him into pools and swamps, such as the marl-pits then were;
that, having thus disabled him in the yielding bogs, and slain him, the
head was cut off, as of too little value to be worth the trouble of
dragging home; that the under jaws and tongue were cut off; and that
frequently the entire carcase was disjointed on the spot, the best parts
only being removed. This would account for the so frequent occurrence of
separate portions of the skeleton, and especially of skulls, in the
bog-earth. No doubt so large an animal would not long survive in a state
of freedom, after an island so limited in extent as Ireland became
peopled throughout; and supposing the females to have been
domesticated, it is quite conceivable that the difficulty or even danger
of capturing or domesticating the males, may have caused the species
soon to become extinct in captivity, when it no longer continued to
exist in a wild state. Thus we may perhaps account for the certainly
remarkable fact that no native Irish name has been recognised as
belonging to it;--remarkable, because the Irish tongue is particularly
rich in distinctive names for natural objects. There exists a very
curious ancient poem in that language which professes to enumerate the
whole fauna of the island. It is founded on the legend that Fian
MacCumhaill was made prisoner by Cormac MacArt, king of Erinn; that the
victor promised to give him freedom on condition that, as a ransom, a
pair of each wild animal found in Ireland were brought before him on the
green of Tara. Cailte MacRonain, the foster-brother of the captive
general undertook the task, and succeeded in bringing the collection
before the king within a twelvemonth; and in the poem, he is supposed to
narrate to St Patrick the detail and result of his enterprise. Of this
poem, which is considered to be as early as the ninth century, the
reader may like to see the following translation by Mr Eugene Curry,
containing the zoological portion:--
"I then went forth to search the lands,
To see if I could redeem my chief,
And soon returned to noble Tara,
With the ransom that Cormac required.
"I brought with me the fierce _Geilt_,[28]
And the tall _Grib_[29] with talons,
And the two Ravens of Fid-da-Beann,
And the two Ducks of Loch Saileann.
"Two Foxes from Sliabh Cuilinn,
Two Wild Oxen[30] from Burren,
Two Swans from the dark wood of Gabhran,
And two Cuckoos from the wood of Fordrum.
"Two _Toghmalls_[31] from Fidh-Gaibhle,
Which is by the side of the two roads,
And two Otters after them,
From the brown-white rock of Dobhar.
"Two Gulls from Tralee hither,
Two _Ruilechs_[32] from Port Lairge (Waterford),
Four _Snags_[33] from the River Brosna,
Two Plovers from the rock of Dunan.
"Two _Echtachs_[34] from the lofty Echtghe,
Two Thrushes from Letter Longarie,
Two _Drenns_[35] from Dun Aife,
The two _Cainches_[36] of Corraivte.
"Two Herons from the hilly Corann,
The two _Errfiachs_[37] of Magh Fobhair,
The two Eagles of Carrick-na-Cloch,
Two Hawks from the wood of Caenach.
"Two Pheasants from Loch Meilge,
Two Water-hens from Loch Eirne,
Two Heath-hens from the Bog of Mafa,
Two Swift Divers from Dubh Loch.
"Two _Cricharans_[38] from Cualann,
Two Titmice from Magh Tualang,
Two Choughs from Gleann Gaibhle,
Two Sparrows from the Shannon.
"Two Cormorants from Ath Cliath,
Two _Onchus_[39] from Crotta Cliach,
Two Jackdaws from Druim Damh,
Two _Riabhogs_[40] from Leathan Mhaigh.
"Two Rabbits from Dumho Duinn,
Two wild Hogs from circular Cnoghbha,
Two _Peatans_[41] from Creat Roe,
Two wild Boars[42] from green-sided Tara.
"Two Pigeons out of Ceis Corann,
Two Blackbirds out of Leitir Finnchoill,
Two black Birds (?) from the strand of Dabhan,
Two Roebucks from Luachair Deaghaidh.
"Two _Fereidhins_[43] from Ath Loich,
Two Fawns from Moin mor,
Two Bats out of the Cave of Cnoghbha,
Two Pigs[44] from the lands of Ollarbha.
"Two Swallows out of Sidh Buidhe,
Two _Iaronns_[45] from the wood of Luadraidh,
Two _Geisechtachs_[46] from Magh Mall,
Two charming Robins from Cnamh Choill.
"Two Woodcocks from Coillruadh,
Two Crows from Lenn Uar,
Two _Bruacharans_[47] from Sliabh-da-Ean,
Two Barnacle-Geese from Turloch Bruigheoil.
"Two _Naescans_[48] from Dun Daighre,
Two Yellow-ammers from the brink of Bairne,
Two _Spireogs_[49] from Sliabh Cleath,
Two Grey Mice from Limerick.
"Two Corncrakes from the Banks of Shannon,
Two Wagtails from the brinks of Birra,
Two Curlews from the Harbour of Galway,
Two _Sgreachogs_[50] from Muirtheimhne.
"Two _Geilt Glinnes_[51] from Glenn-a-Smoil,
Two Jackdaws from great Ath Mogha,
Two fleet _Onchus_[52] from Loch Con,
Two Cats out of the Cave of Cruachain.
"Two Goats from Sith Gabhran,
Two Pigs[53] of the Pigs of Mac Lir,
A Ram and Ewe both round and red,
I brought with me from Aengus.
"I brought with me a Stallion and a Mare,
From the beautiful stud of Manannan,
A Bull and a white Cow from Druim Cain,
Which were given me by Muirn Munchain."
No _known_ allusion occurs in this poem to the Giant Deer.[54] First,
however, we must remember that no small number of the animals mentioned
are quite unrecognisable; and that of those names to which an
explanation is given, many are probably incorrectly rendered. Secondly,
if it could be absolutely shewn that no allusion exists to that fine
beast, it would not at all disprove its existence a thousand years
before. Supposing that the _Megaceros_ became extinct soon after the
colonisation of Ireland, and that this was several centuries before the
Christian era, the distinctive name by which it had been known might
well have died out and become extinct also, among a people unacquainted
with letters. Or if a dim tradition of the animal and of its name still
lingered here and there, it might well be omitted from a catalogue which
professed to give the creatures actually collected in a living state at
a given period. It would have been interesting to have been able to
identify the Great Elk, but its introduction would have been a glaring
anachronism.
The enumeration of nearly a hundred and sixty quadrupeds and birds
either indigenous to or naturalised in Ireland at so early a period,
possesses, I say, a peculiar interest.
If the editor's suggestion is correct, that the _Echtach_ was a bovine
animal, then we have three distinct mentions of this family in the
poem,--the Wild Oxen, the Echtachs, and the Bull and White Cow. The
second and third of these were probably domesticated animals; the first
one expressly "Wild." Now at least five distinct species of Oxen are
known to have inhabited Europe and the British Isles during the later
periods of the Tertiary era, which have been named respectively, _Bison
priscus_, _Bos primigenius_, _frontosus_ and _longifrons_, and _Ovibos
moschatus_. Of these, skulls of _Bos frontosus_ and _B. longifrons_ have
been dug up in some numbers in Ireland. Some of these bear, in the
perforation of the forehead, evident proof of having been slaughtered
_secundum artem_, and therefore of having been domesticated. But one
large skull of the _longifrons_ type, now in the Museum of the Royal
Irish Academy, has a cut in the forehead, into which can be accurately
fitted several of the narrow bronze "celts," or arrow-heads so
frequently dug up in Ireland; a pretty fair proof that this animal was
killed by the hunter's arrow, and was therefore wild.
No bovine animals of the true taurine race are now known to exist in an
aboriginally wild state; but at the epoch of our earliest historical
knowledge of central and western Europe it was far otherwise. Caesar,
describing, under the name of _Urus_, certain wild oxen of the great
Hercynian forest, says, "These Uri are little inferior to elephants in
size, but are bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their
strength, and great their swiftness, nor do they spare man or beast when
once they have caught sight of him. These, when trapped in pitfalls, the
hunters unsparingly kill. The youths, exercising themselves by this sort
of hunting, are hardened by the toil, and those among them who have
killed most, bringing with them the horns, as testimonials, acquire
great praise. But these Uri cannot be habituated to man, nor made
tractable, not even when taken young. The great size of the horns, as
well as the form and quality of them, differs much from those of our
oxen."
It is probable that this race extended widely over Europe, and even into
Asia. Herodotus mentions Macedonian wild oxen, with exceedingly large
([Greek: hypermegathia]) horns; and Philip of Macedon killed a wild bull
in Mount Orbela, which had made great havoc, and produced much terror
among the inhabitants; its spoils he hung up in the Temple of Hercules.
The Assyrian artists delighted to sculpture on the royal bas-reliefs of
Nineveh the conquest of the wild bull by the prowess of their Nimrod
monarchs, and the figures, in their minute anatomical characters, well
agree with the descriptions and remains of the European _Urus_. The
large forest that surrounded ancient London was infested with _boves
sylvestres_ among other wild beasts, and it is probable that these were
_Uri_. The legendary exploit of Guy, Earl of Warwick, in freeing the
neighbourhood from a terrible dun cow, whether historically true or not,
shews the existence of formidable wild bovines in the heart of England,
and the terror they inspired among the people. The family of Turnbull,
in Scotland, are traditionally said to owe their patronymic to a hero
who turned a wild bull from Robert the Bruce, when it had attacked him
while hunting.
What has become of the terrible Uri which lived in Europe at the
commencement of the Christian era? Advancing civilisation has rooted
them out, so that no living trace of them remains, unless the
cream-white breed which is preserved in a semi-wild state in some of our
northern parks be their representatives; or, as is not improbable, their
blood may still circulate in our domestic oxen.
Yet there is no doubt of the identity of a species found abundantly in
Britain in the Tertiary deposits, and named by Owen _Bos primigenius_,
with the Urus of Caesar. This fossil bull was as certainly contemporary
in this island with the elephant, and the hyena, and the baboon, and,
strange to say, with the reindeer, and the musk-ox, too--thus combining
a tropical, a temperate, and an arctic fauna in our limited island at
the same period! What a strange climate it must have been to suit them
all!
Professor Nilsson, who has paid great attention to fossil oxen, mentions
a skull of this species which must have belonged to an animal more than
twelve feet in length from the nape to the root of the tail, and six
feet and a half in height. Again, the skull of a cow in the British
Museum, figured by Professor Owen, measures thirty inches from the crown
to the tips of the jaws! What a beast must this have been! Would not the
slaughter of such a "Dun Cow" as this in single combat have been an
exploit worthy of a doughty earl?
That this ancient fossil bull was really contemporary with man in
Scandinavia is proved by evidence which is irrespective of the question
of its identity with Caesar's Urus. For one of Professor Nilsson's
specimens "bears on its back a palpable mark of a wound from a javelin.
Several celebrated anatomists and physiologists, among whom," he says,
"I need only mention the names of John Mueller, of Berlin, and Andreas
Retzius, of Stockholm, have inspected this skeleton, and are unanimous
in the opinion that the hole in question upon the backbone is the
consequence of a wound, which, during the life of the animal, was made
by the hand of man. The animal must have been very young, probably only
a calf, when it was wounded. The huntsman who cast the javelin must have
stood before it. It was yet young when it died, probably not more than
three or four years old."
We may, then, assume as certain that the vast _Bos primigenius_ of
Western Europe lived as a wild animal contemporaneously with man; and as
almost certain (assuming its identity with the _Urus_) that it continued
to be abundant as late as the Christian era.
The _Bos frontosus_ is a middling-sized bovine. "Its remains," says
Professor Nilsson, "are found in turf-bogs in Southern Scandinavia, and
in such a state as plainly shews that they belonged to a more ancient
period than that in which tame cattle existed in Sweden. This species
lived in Scandinavia contemporaneously with the _Bos primigenius_, and
the _Bison Europaeus_.... If ever it was tamed, and thereby in the course
of time contributed to form some of the tame races of cattle, it must
have been the small-horned, often hornless, breed, which is to be found
in the mountains of Norway, and which has a high protuberance between
the setting-on of the horns above the nape."
This species occurs in a fossil state in some numbers in Ireland; it has
also been found in England. It is by some supposed to be the origin of,
or, at least, to have contributed blood to, the middling Highland races
with high occiput, and small horns.
There is more certainty of the co-existence of the small _B. longifrons_
with man. Some of the evidence I have already adduced. "Within a few
years," says a trustworthy authority, "we have read in one of the
scientific periodicals,--but have just now sought in vain for the
notice,--of a quantity of bones that were dug up in some part of
England, together with other remains of what seemed to be the relics of
a grand feast, held probably during the Roman domination of Britain,
for, if we mistake not, some Roman coins were found associated with
them. _There were skulls_ and other remains of _Bos longifrons_ quite
undistinguishable in form from the antique fossil, whether wild or
domesticated, which, of course, remains a question."[55]
Professor Owen conjectures that this species may have contributed to
form the present small shaggy Highland and Welsh cattle,--the kyloes and
runts; and a similar breed in the northern parts of Scania may have had
a similar origin.
In the _Bison priscus_, the fossil remains of which occur in many parts
of Europe, and more sparsely in Great Britain,[56] we have an example of
a noble animal, which, contemporary with all those which have been
engaging our attention, survives to the present hour, but is dying out,
and would have long ago been extinguished, probably, but for the
fostering influence of human conservation. For the species is considered
as absolutely identical with the _Bison Europaeus_ of modern zoology, the
Bison or Wisent of the Germans, the Aurochs of the Prussians, the Zubr
of the Poles, that formidable creature, which is maintained by the Czar
in an ever-diminishing herd in the vast forests of Lithuania,[57] and
which, perhaps, still lingers in the fastnesses of the Caucasus. This,
the largest, or at least the most massive of all existing quadrupeds,
after the great Pachyderms, roamed over Germany in some numbers as late
as the era of Charlemagne. Considerably later than this it is reckoned
among the German beasts of chase, for in the _Niebelungen Lied_, a poem
of the twelfth century, it is said,
"Dar nach schlouch er schiere, einen wisent und einen elch,
Starcher ure viere, und einen grimmen schelch."
"After this he straightway slew a bison and an elk,
Of the strong uri four, and a single fierce schelch."[58]
It is a formidable beast, standing six feet high at the shoulders, where
it is protected by a thick and profuse mane. Specimens have been known
to reach a ton in weight. It manifests an invincible repugnance to the
ox.
There are several other animals of note which, like the Bison, were once
common inhabitants of these islands, but have long been extinct here,
though more genial circumstances have preserved their existence on the
continent of Europe. Of the great Cave Bear, no evidence of its period
exists, that I know of, except that which may be deduced from the
commixture of its remains with those of other animals of whose recent
date we have proof. But there is another kind of Bear, whose relics in a
fossil state are not uncommon in the Tertiary deposits, viz., the common
Black Bear (_Ursus arctos_) of Europe.
This savage animal must have early succumbed to man. The "Triads"[59]
mention bears as living here before the Kymri came. The Roman poets knew
of their existence here: Martial speaks of the robber Laureolus being
exposed on the cross to the fangs of the _Caledonian_ Bear; and Claudian
alludes to British bears. The Emperor Claudius, on his return to Rome
after the conquest of this island, exhibited, as trophies, combats of
British bears in the arena. In the Penitential of Archbishop Egbert,
said to have been compiled about A.D. 750, bears are mentioned as
inhabiting the English forests, but they must have gradually become
rare, for the chase-laws of Canute, at the beginning of the eleventh
century, are silent about them. In Doomsday Book, we find incidental
notice of this animal, for the city of Norwich is said to have been
required to furnish a bear annually to Edward the Confessor, together
with "six dogs for the bear,"--no doubt for baiting him. This seems to
have been the latest trace on record of the bear in Britain; unless the
tradition may compete with it, which states that one of the Gordon
family was empowered by the king of Scotland to carry three bears' heads
on his banner, as a reward for his prowess in slaying a fierce bear.
In Ireland it seems to have become extinct even yet earlier. Bede
says the only ravenous animals in his day were the wolf and the fox;
Donatus, who died in A.D. 840, distinctly says it was not a native
of the island in his time; and Geraldus Cambrensis does not enumerate
it as known in the twelfth century. Neither is it included in the
ransom-beasts of Cailte's collection. Yet a native Irish name for the
bear--Mathghambain--occurs in an old glossary[60] in the Library of
Trinity College, Dublin; and the late Wm. Thomson says that a tradition
is current of its having once been an Irish animal; and it is associated
with the wolf as a native beast in the stories handed down from
generation to generation to the present time.
The wolf, however, survived in both islands to a much later era. In the
days of the Heptarchy it was a terrible pest; King Edgar commuted the
punishment of certain offences into a requisition for a fixed number of
wolves' tongues; and he converted a heavy tax on one of the Welsh
princes into an annual tribute of three hundred wolves' heads. These
laws continued to the time of Edward I., when the increasing scarcity of
the animal doubtless caused them to fall into disuse. Mr Topham, in his
Notes to Somerville's "Chase," says, that it was in the wolds of
Yorkshire that a price was last set on a wolf's head. The last record of
their occurring in formidable numbers in England is in 1281; but for
three centuries after this, the mountains and forests of Scotland
harboured them; for Hollinshed reports that in 1577 the wolves were very
troublesome to the flocks of that country. Nor were they entirely
destroyed out of this island till about a century afterwards, when the
last wolf fell in Lochaber, by the hand of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel.
In Ireland the last wolf was slain in 1710.
Thus here we are able to lay our finger on the exact dates when a large
and rapacious species of animal actually became extinct so far as the
British Isles are concerned. And if the species had been confined in its
geographical limits, as many other species of animals are, to one group
of islands, we should know the precise date of its absolute extinction.
The Beaver was once an inhabitant of British rivers. Its remains are
found in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, and elsewhere, associated
with the other Mammalia of the fresh-water deposits and caves, but not
in any abundance. No record of its actual existence, however, in these
counties exists, nor anywhere else but in Wales and Scotland, whose
mountain streams and rugged ravines afforded it shelter till after the
Norman Conquest. It was very rare even then, and for a hundred years
before; for the laws of Howel Dda, the Welsh king, who died in 948, in
determining the value of peltry, fix the price of the beaver's skin at a
hundred and twenty pence, when the skins of the stag, the wolf, the fox,
and the otter, were worth only eightpence each, that of the white weasel
or ermine at twelvepence, and that of the marten, at twenty-four pence.
The appropriate epithet of Broad-tail (Llostllyddan) was given it by the
Welsh. Giraldus Cambrensis, who travelled through Wales in 1188, gives,
in his Itinerary, a short account of the beaver, but states that the
river Teivy in Cardiganshire, and one other river in Scotland, were the
only places in Great Britain, where it was then found. In all
probability it did not long survive that century, for no subsequent
notice of it as a British animal is extant. Tradition, however, still
preserves the remembrance of its presence in those indelible records,
names of places. "Two or three waters in the Principality," says
Pennant, "still bear the name of _Llyn yr afangc_,--the Beaver Lake....
I have seen two of their supposed haunts: one in the stream that runs
through Nant Francon; the other in the river Conwy, a few miles above
Llanrwst; and both places, in all probability, had formerly been crossed
by beaver-dams."
If, as naturalists of the highest eminence believe, there is specific
difference between the beaver of Europe and that of America, then we may
say that our species is fast passing away from the earth. A few colonies
yet linger along the banks of the Danube, the Weser, the Rhone and the
Euphrates, but they consist of few individuals, ever growing fewer; and
the value of their fur exciting cupidity, they cannot probably resist
much longer the exterminating violence of man.