Out for a walk, characters hear, then see, a dark-coated canine atop the ridge of a hill and someone comments that it looks like a wolf. That's problematic because by the turn of the 16th century, wolves were extinct in England and Wales. However, they held for longer in other parts of the British realm. In Scotland, wolves survived almost 200 years more, despite regular wolf hunts organized by nobility and decrees by Scottish kings for their destruction. Wolves held on in Ireland until the middle of the 18th century. By 1760, the English wolf in the British Isles was completely extirpated.