THE WILD BOAR. 93 
mast ; hence the frequent mention in the ancient 
annals of Ireland, of the failure of these crops, as 
well as the years in which they abounded.* 
The earliest account known of the wild animals of 
Ireland is to be found ina tract De mirabilibus Sacra 
Scripture, written by an Irish ecclesiastic named 
Augustine about the middle of the 7th century, and 
amongst other ferw naturew, Wild Boars (sylvaticos 
porcos) are especially mentioned. t 
Among the restrictions put upon one of the kings 
of Ulster in the Leabhar na g-Ceart, or “ Book of the 
Rights and Privileges of the Kings of Erin,” was that 
he was not to go into the Wild Boar's hunt, or to be 
seen to attack it alone. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his 
Topographia Iibernie, says, “In no part of the world 
have I seen such an abundance of boars and forest 
hogs. They are, however, small, misshapen, wary, 
no less degenerated by their ferocity and venomous- 
ness than by the formation of their bodies.” 
As regards their size, the statement of Giraldus has 
been confirmed by paleeontologists. Compared with 
veritable specimens of the ancient Wild Boar of 
Northern Europe, as found in the peat mosses of 
Scandinavia, especially in Zeeland, the Irish Wild 
Boar appears to have been a very diminutive animal. 
(Wilde, 7. ¢.) Dr. Scouler asserts that they continued 
* Wilde, “Proc. Roy. Irish Acad.,” vol. vil. p. 208. 
+ The brief allusion made in this tract to the fauna of Ireland, as 
quoted by Reeves (Proc. Roy. Irish Acad.’ 1861) is as follows :— 
“ Quis enim, verbi gratia, lupos, cervos, et sylvaticos porcos et vulpes, 
tazones et lepusculos et sesquivolos in Hiberniam deveneret.”’ This is 
one of the very few sources of information quoted in this volume 
which we have been unable to examine and verify. 
