Augustin reasoned that if the mainland and islands shared a common fauna they must have had former connections. Thus, some 1,200 years before eminent naturalists such as Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin tackled the same issues, the monk had the first intuition of a land bridge between countries. St Augustine of Hippo had himself earlier pondered in De Cicitate Dei whether the remotest islands had been granted their animals from the stocks preserved throughout the Deluge in the Ark or whether those animals had sprung to life on the spot:
‘It might indeed be said that they crossed to the island by swimming, but this could only be true of those islands which lie very near the mainland, while there are others so distant that we fancy no animal could ever swim to them… At the same time it cannot be denied that by the intervention of angels they might be transported thither, by order and permission of God. If however they are produced out of the earth as at their first Creation, when God said “Let the earth bring forth the living creatures”, this makes it more evident that all kinds of animals were preserved in the ark not so much for the sake of renewing the stock as prefiguring the various nations which were to be saved by the Church; this, I say, is more evident if the earth brought forth many animals to islands to which they could not cross over.’11
The Irish Augustin focused the argument closer to home. Being familiar with the fauna of Ireland and knowing that much of it was common to Britain he asked the following question: ‘Quis enim, verbi gratia, lupos, cervos, et sylvaticos porcos, et vulpes, taxones, et lepusculos et sesquivolos in Hiberniam deveheret?’12 ‘Who indeed could have brought wolves, deer, wild (wood) swine, foxes, badgers, little hares and squirrels to Ireland?’ His statement is the first known written record of some of the quadrupeds present in the country during the mid-seventh century.
Giraldus Cambrensis: Topographia Hiberniae 1185
The next important text on Irish natural history came some 530 years later. The author was Giraldus de Barri, alias Giraldus Cambrensis, the grandson of Henry I. His family on his mother’s side were FitzGeralds, active in the Norman invasions of Ireland. Maurice FitzGerald, his uncle, was one of the principal leaders. Cambrensis’s first excursion to Hibernia was in 1183, a visit lasting less than a year. According to his treatise Expungnatio Hiberniae, the reason for his travel was ‘to help my uncle and brother by my council, and diligently to explore the site and nature of the island and primitive origin of its race’.
Topographia Hiberniae, which received its inaugural reading at Oxford in or around 1188,3 provides a remarkably interesting account of twelfth century Ireland, although the accuracy of its natural history has been questioned and dismissed by one naturalist as ‘an amalgam of fact, fibs and fantasy and much of it patently absurd. It is undoubtedly of much use but, from the scientific point of view, so apocryphal a document is not to be relied upon without supporting evidence.’13 Other naturalists have concentrated on the miracles and strange beliefs recounted, using them to discredit the whole text. For instance, Cambrensis talks about barnacle geese hatching from goose barnacles found clinging to floating logs in the sea. ‘They take their food and nourishment from the juice of wood and water during their mysterious and remarkable generation. I myself have seen many times with my own eyes more than a thousand of the small bird-like creatures hanging from a single log upon the sea-shore.’ Such miracles were in vogue, a convenient way of explaining mysterious phenomena and the substance of bestiaries. What about, for instance, the bended leg of the crane? Cambrensis explained that when on watch duty, the crane stood on one leg while clutching a stone in the other which would drop when the bird went to sleep, so that it would be awakened on the spot and could resume its watch. Not all of Cambrensis is as blatantly fantastical as this. Praeger sums it up when he says that Cambrensis ‘was a careful recorder, but credulous; and from his statements it often requires care and ingenuity to extract the truth’.2 Thus the reader has to disentangle strands of truth from strands of fiction, and make intelligent guesses – whereupon certain important points emerge.
In defence of Cambrensis’s flights of fancy, many writers on natural history, even well into the second millennium, also traded some equally extraordinary beliefs and myths. Another typical story is that of the vanishing birds, or ‘birds that do not appear in the winter-time’. To Cambrensis they ‘… seem … to be seized up into a long ecstasy and some middle state between life and death. They receive no support from food … and are wakened up from sleep, return with the “zephyr” and the first swallow.’ This is close to the misconceptions, persisting many centuries later, concerning the hibernation of swallows, which, it was postulated, spent the winter in estuarine muds. The large pre-migratory flocks congregating in the autumn, their wheeling over reed beds, their subsequent disappearance and mysterious re-emergence the following spring led many naturalists to believe that at some stage they buried themselves in the soft ooze. Such stories were trotted out into the late eighteenth century, even by such writers as Gilbert White (1720–93).14 If White could agree to such absurdities then Cambrensis will be partly forgiven for seeing birds in shellfish and slumberous cranes holding stones.
Topographia Hiberniae is presented in three parts: the position and topography of Ireland, including its natural history; the wonders and miracles of Ireland, and the inhabitants of the country. Cambrensis claimed that he used no written sources for the first two parts and so must have drawn mostly upon his own observations and notes, together with information provided by other people. As shown by his text, Cambrensis did not venture outside the neighbourhoods of Waterford or Cork on his first visit. On his second trip he travelled from Waterford to Dublin, possibly by the coastal route, and he probably visited Arklow and Wicklow. He saw both Kildare and Meath and almost certainly the River Shannon at Athlone, as well as Loughs Ree and Derg.15 In short, Cambrensis remained within the Norman-occupied areas where he would always be granted protection and succour. His commentary is thus biased towards the more fertile and amenable landscapes of Ireland.
The following analysis of the fauna of the time is based on the first version of the three known manuscripts copied from the original work by Cambrensis. This version dates from the twelfth century and is a copy in Latin, translated here by O’Meara.15 For Cambrensis, Ireland was a land ‘fruitful and rich in its fertile soil and plentiful harvests. Crops abound in the fields, flocks on the mountain and wild animals in the woods.’ However, the island was ‘richer in pastures than in crops, and in grass rather than grain’. As to the grass, it was ‘green in the fields in winter just the same as in summer. Consequently the meadows are not cut for fodder, nor do they ever build stalls for their beasts.’
Cambrensis went on to describe the soil, ‘soft and watery, and there are many woods and marshes. Even at the tops of high and steep mountains you will find pools and swamps. Still there are, here and there, some fine plains, but in comparison with the woods they are small.’ Swarms of bees ‘would be much more plentiful if they were not frightened off by the yew trees that are poisonous and bitter, and with which the island woods are flourishing.’ The rivers and lakes were rich in fish, especially salmon, trout and eels, and there were sea lamprey in the River Shannon. Three fish were present in Ireland that were ‘not found anywhere else’ – pollan, shad and charr – but other freshwater fish were ‘wanting’ – pike, perch, roach, gardon (chubb) and gudgeon. The same applied to minnows, loach