THE WILD BOAK. 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 in a tract De mirabilibus Sacrce 

 Scriptura', written by an Irish ecclesiastic named 

 Augustine about the middle of the 7th century, and 

 amongst other ferce natures, Wild Boars (sylvaticos 

 porcos) are especially mentioned.! 



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 

 Topographic Hibernice, 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 palaeontologists. 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,/, c. ) Dr. Seoul er asserts that they continued 



* Wilde, " Proc. Roy. Irish Acad.," vol. vii. p. 208. 



t The brief allusion made in this tract to the fauna of Ireland, as 

 quoted by Reeves ("Proc. Roy. Irish Acad." 1861) is as follows: 

 " Qnis cnim, verli gratia, lupos, cervos, et sylvaticos porcos et vulpcs, 

 taxones ct lepuscnlos ct sesquivolos in Hibcrniam dcvcncrct." This is 

 one of the very few sources of information quoted in this volume 

 which we have been unable to examine and verify. 



