3^3 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Notes and Observations on Irish Mammals Red-deer and Fallow- 

 deer Roe-deer Wild-goat Fox Marten Stoat and Weasel 

 Wild-cat Squirrel Otter Seals. 



ALTHOUGH it may seem somewhat out of place to 

 refer to quadrupeds in a work devoted to wildfowl, 

 several reasons have induced me, when looking 

 over my journals, to extract, and arrange for publi- 

 cation here, the notes which I have made relating 

 to wild animals in Ireland, which are of special 

 interest to the sportsman, and hardly less so to the 

 naturalist. 



Some of these are now becoming rare, or at least 

 may be said to be very local, and as comparatively 

 little has been published regarding their distribution 

 and haunts in Ireland, it may be well to place on 

 record such information concerning them as I have 

 been able to pick up in the course of my fowling 

 excursions. 



The Red-deer, now restricted to some of the 

 wilder parts of Kerry, must at one time have been 

 generally distributed throughout Ireland. Giraldus 

 Cambrensis, in his " Topographia Hibernica " 

 (1183-1185), includes it amongst the beasts of chase ; 

 and Fynes Moryson, Secretary to Lord Mountjoy 

 when Lord Deputy of Ireland (1599-1603), refers 

 particularly, in his " Description of Ireland," to the 



