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deer, Fox, and Variable or Alpine Hare; and although not found along with the Irish Elk, it has been generally met with in similar lacustrine beds. It seems to me that, as in the neighbouring island, if the Brown Bear had ever been a native of Ireland, it would, as in Scotland and England, have come down to the historical period; so that the fact of no notice of its presence, and the very emphatic assertions or silence of Bede, St. Donatus,* Giraldus Cambrensis, and Pennant, seem to me to bear out the results of recent disclosures. The probability is, therefore, that, like its congeners, all, excepting the Hare and Red-deer, became extinct in the island before man commenced to make records of the fera of the country; for it is a remarkable circumstance that in all the remains of Irish extinct mammals, none present the fragmentary characters afforded by the cavern deposits of the sister island; thus showing on the one hand, that they had not been destroyed by man, nor by the bone-crunching hyæna, but that they met their deaths, for the most part, through natural causes and accidents."

The Welsh Triads, some of which are supposed to have been compiled in the ninth century, but most of which are of a much later date,† say that "the Kymry, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain; before them were no men there, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with high prominences."

* In Ireland, according to St. Donatus, who died in 840, the Bear was not indigenous: ursorum rabies nulla est ibi."

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+ See Stephens, "Literature of the Kymry," p. 427 (ed. 1876), and Appendix.

Many places in Wales, says Pennant, still retain the name of Penarth, or "the bear's head," another evidence of their former existence in our country.

Our illustrious countryman, John Ray, in his "Synopsis Methodica Animalium" (a small octavo volume, published in 1693), tells us (pp. 213, 214) that his friend Mr. Edward Llwyd, in an old Welsh MS. on British laws and customs, discovered certain statutes and regulations relating to hunting, from which it appeared that the Bear was formerly reckoned amongst the beasts of chase (E novem quæ venantur ferarum generibus tria tantum latrabilia + esse, ursum, scandentia, et phasianum, and its flesh was esteemed equally with that of the Hare and the Wild Boar: "Summam seu præcipuæ æstimationis ferinam esse, ursi, leporis et apri."§

*"British Zoology," vol. i. p. 91 (ed. 1812).

+ Latrabilia, "baitable animals." The term is thus explained by Ray (op. cit.): "Ursus fera latrabilis [baitable] dicitur, quia cum tardigradus sit, nec velociter currere possit, canes eum facile assequuntur, contra quos deinde corpore in clunes erecto aliquandiu se defendit; canes autem initio timidi nec propius accedere aut eum allatrant antequam aggrediantur et occidant." See also Stuart, "Lays of the Deer Forest," vol. ii. p. 441.

Scandentia, sc., "climbers," the marten and wild cat, perhaps also the squirrel. The mention of the pheasant here is remarkable, and we should be curious to discover the date of this MS., if still preserved, and the Welsh equivalent, in Llwyd's opinion, for "phasianum." We know from another source (a MS. dated about 1177) that this bird was to be found here in 1059, since it is included in a bilļ of fare of that date prescribed by Harold for the household of the canons at Waltham Abbey. It would be interesting to know whether the Welsh MS. referred to was an earlier document or otherwise.

§ In " a letter (dated Sept. 14, 1696) from the late Mr. Edward Llwyd, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, to Dr. Tancred Robinson, F.R.S., containing several observations in Natural History,

Of the ancient British methods of hunting the Bear, we are but imperfectly informed. We learn, however, from rude descriptions and ruder figurings, that he was watched to his couch, or was traced to his winter retirement, when arrows, pikes, clubs, javelins, and long knives, were used against him; he was also occasionally betrayed into a pitfall.

In

[graphic]

BEAR HUNT. FROM AN OLD PRINT IN POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.

later times the Bear was trailed with boar-hounds, and despatched by the spear or knife of the hunter,

made in his travels through Wales " (" Phil. Trans.," vol. xxvii. p. 462), the writer observes:

"Sir William Williams hath several Welsh MSS. (tho' I think no dictionary) that would be of use to me; but his son tells me he's resolv'd never to lend any. They are chiefly modern copies out of Hengwrt Study in Meirionydhshire, which I am promis'd free access to; and have this time taken a Catalogue of all the ancient MSS. it contains. There are the works of Taliefyn, Aneuryn gwawdydh, Myrdhyn ab Morvryn and Kygodio Elaeth, who lived in the fifth and

as the animal rose to grapple with the dogs, or with their master. Bear hunting must have been always a dangerous sport, in this respect and if ever the great Cave Bear was an object of the hunters' attack, the boar-hunt of Calydon, as described by Ovid, could alone have furnished a parallel.

That bears were to be found in Britain during the eighth century may be inferred from the fact that in the "Penitentiale" of Archbishop Egbert, drawn up about A.D. 750, it is laid down (lib. iv.) that "if any one shall hit a deer or other animal with an arrow, and it escapes and is found dead three days afterwards, and if a dog, a wolf, a fox, or a bear, or any other wild beast hath begun to feed upon it, no Christian shall touch it."*

In the time of Edward the Confessor, as we learn from "Domesday," the town of Norwich furnished annually one Bear to the king, and six dogs for the baiting of it.t

Baiting wild animals was a favourite pastime with

sixth centuries (but the small MS. containing them all seems to have been copied about 500 years ago), as also of several others valuable in their kind." In a subsequent letter to Dr. Robinson, dated Lhan Dyvodog, Glamorganshire, Sept. 22, 1697, he says:-" I had no sooner received your last but was forced to retire in a hurry to the mountainous parts of this county, in order to copy out a large Welsh MS. which the owner was not willing to spare above two or three days, and that in his neighbourhood. It was written on vellum about 300 years since, and contained a collection of most of the ancient writers mentioned by Dr. Davies at the end of the Welsh dictionary. So I thought it better trespassing on the gentleman's patience that lent it, than lose such an opportunity as perhaps will not occur again in my travels. This is the occasion of my long silence the transcribing of that book taking up two months of our time."

* Migne, "Patrologia Cursus Completus," tom. lxxxix. p. 426. + Gale, vol. i. p. 777; Blount, "Ancient Tenures," p. 315 (ed. 1815).

C

the Romans and their imitators, the Roman Britons. And as amphitheatres were constructed of squared stone, and in a magnificent style for these exhibitions at Rome, so were others erected here in Britain in a less pretentious style of architecture, and of the humbler materials of clay, chalk, gravel, and turf. Such are the great amphitheatres at Silchester and Dorchester, once extending in several rows of seats,

ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMEN'S BEAR DANCE. TENTH CENTURY.

and still including an arena of nearly two hundred yards in circumference.*

In all probability the trained bears exhibited by the Anglo-Saxon Gleemen were native animals taken young and tamed.

So far as history informs us, it would seem that Scotland, and more particularly the great Caledonian forest, was the chief stronghold of our British Bears. Bishop Leslie says that that great wood was

* "Itin. Cur.," pp. 155-170; "Phil. Trans." 1748, p. 603.

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