THE WOLF. £99 
In a poem, in six cantos, published as late as 1719, 
and entitled, “‘MacDermot, or the Irish Fortune- 
Hunter,” “ Wolf-hunting” and “ Wolf-spearing” are 
represented as common sports in Munster. Here is 
an extract :— 
“It happen’d on a day with horn and hounds, 
A baron gallop’d through MacDermot’s grounds, 
Well hors’d, pursuing o’er the dusty plain 
A Wolf that sought the neighbouring woods to gain: 
Mac hears th’ alarm, and, with his oaken spear, 
Joins in the chase, and runs before the peer, 
Outstrips the huntsman, dogs, and panting steeds, 
And, struck by him, the falling savage bleeds.” 
The crest of the O’Quins of Munster is “a Wolf's 
head, erased, argent,” possibly perpetuating the 
prowess of some former noted Wolf-hunter in that 
ancient family. 
The author of “The Present State of Great 
Britain and Ireland,” printed in London in 1738, 
wrote at that date, ‘ Wolves still abound too much 
in Ireland; they pray for the Wolves, least they 
should devour them.” 
In Smith’s ‘Ancient and Modern State of the 
County of Kerry,” 1756 (of which book Macaulay 
said, “I do not know that I have ever met with a 
better book of the kind and of the size,” “ Hist. 
Eng.” ili. 136), the author, speaking of certain ancient 
enclosures, observes (p. 173) that many of them were 
made to secure cattle from Wolves, which animals 
were not entirely extirpated until about the year 
1710, as I find by presentments for raising money 
for destroying them in some old grand-jury books.” 
Traces of old circular entrenchments, into which 
