After the Reformation, Catholicism was kept alive in England by a number of families that refused to abandon the old faith. These recusants have left an indelible stamp on the character of the Church in this country Charles Waterton, a late-eighteenth-century scion of an ancient Catholic family from Yorkshire, was an enthusiastic naturalist and explorer. While travelling the Orinoco, he found a giant caiman he wanted to stuff for his collection, so he rode it to the shore. “If it be asked how I managed to keep my seat,” he wrote, “I would answer, I hunted for some years with Lord Darlington’s foxhounds.” An accomplished taxidermist, he amused himself by creating “caricatures of famous Protestants, made out of the component parts of lizards and toads&rd