MAMMALS extensive ; and, above all, the intrusion of man into every nook and corner of districts which long were sanctuaries for every beast of the field, are all having a reducing effect on its mammalian, especially its carnivorous, fauna. The fox, the otter, the badger, and the pine marten are becoming rarer every year, and will soon have passed altogether, if indeed the last-named, together, too probably, with the wild cat, has not already become extinct in Lancashire. The charming diminutive harvest mouse, whose grass-ball nest filled with tiny young was ever the delight of the old-time scythe-man, has been all but exterminated by the modern reaping machine. The present fauna has, however, long lost its most imposing members. It would have been possible a few centuries ago to have seen wild, amid the uplands of lakeland Lancashire and in the open glades and in the once dense but now vanished forests of the plain, some noble and formidable quadrupeds. The wolf, whose lair was among the crags of the Pennines and the Fells, was only finally exterminated in the seventeenth century. Innumerable wild boars infested the woods, and large beaver communities the banks of many of the streams. Herds of red-deer, generally more splendidly antlered than the species is to-day, roamed over the opener parts of the county till the close of the seventeenth century. If tradition may be trusted, one of the last retreats where the wild white cattle of Britain, the direct offspring — probably mingled with other blood — of the urus, lived and bred unparked and in a state of nature was the far-extending ancient forest of Bowland, just as they had ' bredde in times [longer] paste at Blakele.' Hence, doubtless, was obtained the foundation of those herds which during the past 500 years or more were enclosed in parks in many parts of Lancashire, such as at Houghton Tower, Whalley Abbey, and Middleton HaU, where the cattle roamed in a quite undomesticated state. According to Leigh's History of Lancashire, the herd of Sir Ralph Ashton at the last-mentioned hall was still wild as late as the year 1700, and apparently the bulls still sported flowing manes, an ancestral heritage which is generally hardly to be discerned in the majority of their male descendants to-day. Various other domestic breeds appear to have been specially reared in the county. The author just quoted notes that ' Lancashire ... is most remark- able for breeding Cattle of a size more than Ordinary large, particularly about Burnley and Maudsley, from which places I have known Cattle sold at extraordinary rates, an heifer sometimes amounting to ^15 or ^20 ; the ground they feed upon is usually upon an ascent, and the grass shorter than in lower grounds.' A native breed of cattle which has now become nearly extinct had long horns, a thick firm textured hide with long thick shaggy hair variable in colour, large hoofs, and a coarse thick neck. Baines, too, speaks of ' a herd of black sheep which used to graze on the pastures of Higher Furness, furnishing wool that in former times rendered the woollen manufacture of Kendal and Cartmel famous throughout England.' The Haslingden sheep are probably the remains of the ancient Lancashire horned breed which had a grey face and carried a heavy fleece. The Hard wick breed in Higher Furness, which is hornless, produces short wool, and has the face and legs speckled. Any detailed notice, however, of the species of mammals which once inhabited the county, but have been entirely removed from the roll of living creatures, must be left to the palasontologist to supply. 207
