HORSES AND HOUNDS. 393 



martins and weasels will be found in their customary 

 haunts ; while on the coast and estuaries, the lakes 

 and inland waters, seals and otters are plentiful in the 

 extreme. 



Of winged game, pheasants and partridges excepted, 

 I have already spoken. With regard to the first, they 

 are scarce, and, it would appear, difficult to rear in this 

 moist and stormy climate. I speak only of the places 

 contiguous to the coast, where the experiment has been 

 tried ; for inland, where they have been duly attended 

 to, and the English system adopted, they have thriven 

 amazingly. As to partridges, they are generally scarce, 

 and in Erris and Ballycroy almost unknown. In the 

 wheat counties, and especially in certain parts of Galway, 

 I believe they are tolerably abundant — but by com- 

 parison with the quantity a sportsman meets in an 

 English beat, the best partridge-shooting procurable 

 in Connaught will be very indifferent indeed. 



My task is ended — I have chronicled ** the short 

 but simple annals " of a sporting summer, passed in 

 a remote and unfrequented corner of the earth, and 

 protracted until '* winter and rough weather " forbade 

 a longer stay. Into these solitudes I carried prejudices 

 as unfair as they were unfavourable — I came prepared 

 to dislike a people who, unhappily for themselves, 

 are Httle known and less regarded. I found my 

 estimate of their character false, for kindnesses were 

 returned tenfold, and the native outbreakings of Milesian 

 hospitality met me at every step. What though the 

 mountaineer had nothing but his potato-basket to 

 offer — it was freely open to my hand. Did I wander 

 from the road ? his loy* was left in the furrow, and 

 * Loy, a narrow spade. 



