694 SCIURIDA—SCIURUS 
about 1430, and dealing with the trade of Chester. The passage may 
be quoted zx extenso :— 
“‘T caste to speke of Irelonde but a lytelle, 
Commoditees yit I woll entitelle, 
Hydes, and fish, samon, hake, herynge, 
Irish wollen, lynyn cloth, faldynge, 
And marternus gode, bene here marchandyse, 
Hertys hydes, and other of venerye, 
Skynnes of otere, squerel, and Irysh hare, 
Of shepe, lambe, and fox, is here chaffare, 
Ffelles of kydde and conies grete plente, 
Of silver and golde there is the oore.”! 
At about the same time one Nicholas Arthur of Limerick is 
definitely mentioned as trading in horses, falcons, skins of otters, 
martens, squirrels, and other soft-furred animals (Arthur. MWSS., 
Lenihan, Limerick, 369), his first trading voyage having taken place 
in 1438. Finally, in the late fifteenth century, the skin of the Squirrel 
was included by Hakluyt amongst the exports of Ireland. 
The above records are ample and conclusive as to the former 
existence of the Squirrel in Ireland. They are quite satisfactory on 
all the points which might have been subject to error, eg. there is no 
possible confusion with any other animal, and the export and import 
trades are not confused, a matter of importance when it is remembered 
that there was in medizval times a considerable import trade in 
Squirrel skins. 
Exactly when the animal became extinct is still a matter of 
conjecture, but, since it must have previously reached a point at which 
its pursuit became unprofitable, documents may at any time be 
discovered throwing light upon it. In the meantime there is little to 
bridge the gap between the end of the fifteenth century when the 
squirrel must have been abundant and its reintroduction about 1815. 
Its inclusion in O’Flaherty’s list of the animals of Western Connaught 
in 1684 and in Keough’s Zoologica Medicinalis Hibernica (p. 83) in 
1739 are, if unsupported, records. of quite doubtful value. Certainly, 
however, they gain in authority from the other records by which they 
are now known to have been preceded; but it would probably be unsafe 
to argue from them, as some do, that these two records indicate that 
the Squirrel never became altogether extinct in Ireland. 
Apart from the persecution of man, the cause of the disappearance 
of the Squirrel from Ireland must always remain doubtful. But the 
universal destruction of woods, into the remnants of which the beasts 
1 Political Songs (Rolls Series, ii. 185, 1861): reprinted at p. 414 of Jreland, 
Industrial and Agricultural, published by the Department of Agricultural and 
Technical Instruction for Ireland, Dublin, 1902 ; also in Joyce, 433. 
