After London · Chapter
Wild Animals explained
This chapter catalogs the wild animals that now roam the forests and fields after the collapse of civilization.
What happens
This chapter catalogs the wild animals that now roam the forests and fields after the collapse of civilization. It describes the various species of wild cattle, pigs, sheep, and horses, noting their origins from domesticated animals of the ancients, their behaviors, and their interactions with humans. The chapter also mentions the disappearance of exotic menagerie animals and the survival of beavers and some aquatic birds.
Themes in this chapter
Collapse of Civilization
The chapter details how domestic animals reverted to wild states after the ancients departed, illustrating the collapse of human control over nature.
Nature and Wilderness
The extensive catalog of wild animals and their behaviors emphasizes the reclamation of the landscape by untamed nature.
Key passages
“When the ancients departed, great numbers of their cattle perished. It was not so much the want of food as the inability to endure exposure that caused their death; a few winters are related to have so reduced them that they died by hundreds, many mangled by dogs.”
After the ancients left, many of their cattle died not from starvation but from exposure to the elements, with harsh winters killing hundreds, often after being attacked by dogs.
Explains the initial decline of domestic cattle after civilization's fall.
“The white or dun bull is the monarch of our forests.”
The white or dun bull is considered the king of the forest.
Highlights the dominance of the white cattle in the wild.
“Tradition says that in the olden times there were horses of a slender build whose speed outstripped the wind, but of the breed of these famous racers not one is left.”
Legend tells of ancient horses so fast they could outrun the wind, but none of that breed survive today.
Mourns the loss of a once-prized horse breed.