Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/383

352. THE HIS T- G R If BbqM*; fqlitary condition of the parifh before the coming of the Romans, into it. No other period of its Ijtiftory could have given half fuch fcope to the wafteful powers as the original and the Bri- tish. The woods muft have been not a little contracted in their fize, a town had been long planted in the center of them, and the reft of our Arden muft have been frequently traverfed by the inhabitants their flocks and their herds, at the period of the Saxon ravages in Lancafhire, And the woods muft. have been muph more contra&ed in their fize, the town that had been planted in the center of them muft have been much naore po- pulous, and the remains of our Arden muft have been much more frequently traverfed by the inhabitants of it, at the later period of the Danifh ravages in Lancaihire. Such was the afpeCt of our jnore immediate precin&s during the period of the Roman refidence among us, the fofter ground of many of our vallies being converted into an impracticable morafs, and the firmer ground of the hill and' the plain being generally covered with woods. In thefe or the neighbouring woods of the county was bred nearly all that variety of wild beafts which I have (hewn to be the natives qf Britain, the fegh- deer, the wolf, the bull, and the boar. The. large branching horns of the fegh have been found oftener in this than in any other county of the kingdom. One of thena was dug up about feventy years ago at Larbrick near Prefton, having the entire head of the flag and even the vertebrae of the neck adhering to it ; a (till larger was fQund a few years before in a mofs at Mea]e£, having equally the head adhering to it ; and a third was fiftied out r of the fea in 1727 near Cartmel l The wolf was once very com- mon in Northumberland in Yorkfhire and in Derbyfhire, has given the appellation of Wulf-crags to a long range of rocky precipicfes in our foreft of Wierftlale, and within half a century before the Conqueft was frequent in our foreft' of Roffentkde ,4 . The wild bull found an agreeable refidence in our Mancunian Arden, and even continued in one part of it,, the extenfive woods of Blakeley, as late as the fourteenth century ,5 . And the. wild boar roved at liberty over all the woods of the parifh fo£ many centuries