THE WOLF. 193 



abroad a hunting the Wolf." As the Vice-regal Court 

 was then located at Kilmainham, almost within 

 the city of Dublin, it would appear that the Wolf 

 in question was to be found at no great distance 

 beyond the city walls, 



Sir Arthur Chichester, writing to Sir John Davys, 

 March 31, 1 609, in reference to the pending planta- 

 tion of Ulster, incidentally remarks, that " if the 

 Irish do not possess and inhabit a great part of the 

 lands in some of those escheated countries, none but 

 Wolves and wild beasts would possess them for many 

 years to come ; for where civil men may have lands 

 for reasonable rents in so many thousand places in 

 that province, and in this whole kingdom, they will 

 not plant themselves in mountains, rocks and desert 

 places, though they might have the land for nothing. "* 



In the reign of James I. it would seem that 

 active measures were advised for the destruction of 

 Wolves in Ireland, and the following " Heads of a 

 Bill in the Irish Parliament, 1611," will be found 

 preserved amongst the Carew MSS., formerly in the 

 Record Office, but now at Lambeth Palace :t " An 

 Act for killing Wolves and other vermin, touching 

 the days of hunting, the people that are to attend, 

 who to be their director, an inhibition not to use any 

 arms. The Lord Deputy or Principal Governor to 

 prohibit such hunting if he suspect that such assem- 

 blies by colour of hunting may prove inconvenient." 



* State Papers, Ireland, in Record Office, vol. ccxxvi, 58. 

 t Carew, MSS., vol. dcxxix. p. 35. See also Hamilton's " Calendar of 

 State Papers referring to Ireland," Jac. I., sub anno, p. 192. 



