It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define with precision the point where legend ends and history begins; but the line may be drawn with convenience at the first beginning of a connected and continuous narrative, rather than at the first isolated notice of a country. If we accept this definition, the historic period in Great Britain cannot be extended further back than the temporary invasion of Julius Cæsar, B.C. 55, even if so far, since of the interval that elapsed between that event and the subjugation under Claudius, in the year A.D. 43, we know scarcely anything. Of the events which happened in this country before Cæsar’s invasion there is no documentary evidence, although, by the modern method of scientific research, we are able to extend the narrative away from the borders of history far back into the archæological and geological past. _Wild Animals in Britain during the Historic Period._ During the historic period great changes have taken place in the animals inhabiting Great Britain. The wild animals have been diminished in number, and their area of occupation has been narrowed by the increase of population and the improvement in weapons of destruction. The brown bear, inhabiting Britain during the time of the Roman occupation, was extirpated probably before the tenth century. The current belief that it was destroyed in Scotland by the founder of the Gordon family in 1057 is unsupported by any documentary evidence which I have been able to discover; the crest of the Gordons, which is supposed to have been derived from the last of those animals slain in the island, consisting of three boars’, not _bears’_, heads. The last wolf is said to have been destroyed in Scotland in 1680, while in Ireland the animal lingered thirty years later to be a terror to the defenceless beggars. It was deemed worthy of a special decree for its destruction in the reign of Edward I. The wild boar was extinct before the reign of Charles I., while the beaver, which was hunted for its fur on the banks of the Teivi in Cardiganshire during the time of the first Crusade, became extinct shortly afterwards. The stag was so abundant in the south of England as recently as the reign of Queen Anne, that she saw a herd of no less than five hundred between London and Portsmouth. At present the animal lives only in a half-wild condition, in the forest of Exmoor and the Highlands of Scotland; while the roedeer is now only found wild in Scotland, although it formerly ranged throughout the length and breadth of the country. The reindeer is proved to have been living in Caithness as late as the year 1159, by a passage in the Orkneyinga Saga.