British animals extinct within historic times : with some account of British wild white cattle / by James Edmund Harting ; with illustrations by J. Wolf, C. Whymper, R.W. Sherwin, and others.

  • Harting James Edmund, 1841-1928.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: British animals extinct within historic times : with some account of British wild white cattle / by James Edmund Harting ; with illustrations by J. Wolf, C. Whymper, R.W. Sherwin, and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Paul Henfczner, who, in the capacity of travelling- tutor to a young German nobleman, visited England in 1598, has left a curious record of his journey in the form of an Itinerary, preserved to us through the instrumentality of Horace Walpole.^ In this Itinerary the writer, after describing the theatres (p. 269), particularly mentions another place, built in the form of a theatre, which served for the baiting of bulls and bears. They are fastened behind, he says, and then worried by great English bulldogs; but not without great risque to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot: fresh ones are immediately supplied in the place of those that are wounded or tired.'' When any Bear-baiting was about to take place, it was publicly made known, and the Bearward previously paraded the streets with his animal, to excite the curiosity of the populace, and induce them to become spectators of the sport. On these occasions the Bear, who was usually preceded by a minstrel or two, carried a monkey or baboon on his back. In The Humorous Lovers, the play above referred to, Tom of Lincoln is mentioned as the name of a famous Bear, and one of the characters, pretending to personate a Bearward, says ; I'll set up my bills, that the gamesters of London, Horsly- * A Journey into England by Paul Hentzner in tlie year 1598. First printed in the year 1757, and contained also in Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. pp. 233-311 (1765).