The hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs.
Hares, for a long period extinct, were reintroduced about 1830, rabbits are very numerous, and the northern limit of the hedgehog is drawn at Lerwick.
The fauna includes the elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, roan-antelope, hartebeeste, kudu and many other kinds of antelope, wart-hog, hares, quail, partridge, jungle-fowl, bustard and guinea-fowl.
Hares, rabbits, field-mice, waterrats, rats, squirrels, moles, game-birds, pigeons, and small birds, form the chief food of the wild cat.
Sculptured panels, with conventional motives, peacocks, eagles devouring hares, peacocks drinking from a cup on a tall pillar, are let into both exterior and interior walls, as are roundels of precious marbles, sawn from columns of porphyry, serpentine, verd antique, &c. The adoption of veneer for decoration prohibited any deep cutting, and almost all the sculpture is shallow.
