HUNTING COUNTRY. 43 



CHAPTER IX. 



Sporting topography of Mayo Hunting country Fox covers Cakes, 

 rivers, and fish A domiciliary visit Revenue foray Capture of 

 drunken distillers Alarm Midnight meditations Angling excursion 

 Goolamore Salmon fishing English and Irish hooks Limerick 

 preferable to all others. 



To look, my dear George, at the map of Mayo, one would 

 imagine that Nature had designed that county for a sports- 

 man. The westerly part is wild and mountainous ; alpine 

 ridges of highlands interpose between the ocean and the in- 

 terior, and from the bases of these hills a boundless tract of 

 heath and moorland extends in every direction. To the east, 

 the face of the country undergoes a striking change large 

 and extensive plains cover the surface, and as the lands are 

 generally occupied in pasturage, and consequently not sub- 

 divided into the numerous enclosures which are requisite in 

 tillage farming, this part of Mayo is justly in high estimation 

 as a hunting country, and for centuries has been a favourite 

 fixture of the neighbouring fox-hunters. The Plains, as this 

 sporting district is usually denominated, afford constant oppor- 

 tunities for the horse to show his powers, and the rider his 

 nerve. The parks are of immense size ; the fences stiff and 

 safe ; the surface agreeably undulated, and from the firmness 

 of the sward, affording superior galloping ground. One may 

 occasionally ride over miles without being necessitated to 

 take a leap; but when one does meet fences, they are generally 

 raspers ; and if the scent lies, and the dogs can go, nothing 

 but a tip-top horse, and a man " who takes everything as God 

 sends it," will hold a forward place upon the plains. 



The covers in the vicinity of the plains are numerous and 

 well supplied with foxes. Of these animals there is no 

 scarcity anywhere in Mayo ; but in the mountain districts 

 there is, unfortunately, a superabundance. The herdsman 

 and grouse-shooter complain sadly of their devastations ; 

 and notwithstanding numbers are annually dug out for ' hunt- 

 ing, or destroyed by the peasantry, there seems to be an 

 anti-Malthusian property in the animal, which enables its mis- 

 chievous stock, maugre traps and persecution, to increase and 

 multiply. 



