throughout the Country; but withall he saith, that by reason of the store of water and mud thereof, there do breed yearly an innumerable company of gnats, whose property is to fly unto the eye of the lion, as being a bright and orient thing; where biting and stinging the lion, he teareth so fiercely with his claws that he putteth out his own eyes, and by that means many are drowned in the rivers[1]."
The total extirpation of all formidable beasts of prey in the British Islands is perhaps the best proof of our highly advanced state. Even in the most barbarous parts of Wales, and in the Highlands of Scotland, the wolf is no longer to be found. It is extinct in Ireland also. Many parts of France which are more populous than the remoter parts of these islands, and probably in many respects much more im-
- ↑ Page 114.
