SPORT IN IRELAND 171 



grass pastures, with big banks, strengthened with 

 stone, so wide upon the top that, as a friend remarked 

 to me, you can almost drive a coach-and-four along. 

 At all events, they are wide enough to afford well-used 

 foot-paths to the country people. 



As regards the Kerry beagle, my friend, Mr. W. 

 Dove, sends me some interesting notes. He has seen 

 them chiefly at Waterville, County Kerry. He describes 

 them as " a big hound of about twenty-one or twenty- 

 two inches, rather long-eared, and heavy-headed, 

 showing a good deal of the badger-pie and black- 

 and-tan. They seem to pick up a living anyhow, 

 and although those I saw were supposed to belong to 

 people living up in the mountains, yet they always 

 seem to turn up in Waterville at some hour of the day 

 to scavenge for a living. I am told that they are 

 got together to hunt on Sundays. Another Sunday 

 pack is to be found, or was a few years ago, in Ennis, 

 County Clare ; those I saw were as pretty little eighteen- 

 inch hounds as one could wish to see. I am told that 

 ten to fifteen couples could be got together on Sunday, 

 and were collected by the huntsman for the day sound- 

 ing his horn through the town. If the pack were all 

 like the few couples I saw running about, they were 

 bound to show sport." 



This is a very curious and interesting phase of wild 

 Irish sport, which, it seems to me, is worthy of mention 

 in a book on hare-hunting. The Kerry beagle has, 

 I am afraid, a much poorer time of it after his hunting 

 than his well-fed brethren of England. Instead of 

 going into a comfortable kennel to find an excellent 

 supper, clean straw, and other luxuries ready for him, 

 he is dismissed by the huntsman, on returning to his 

 village, with a " Go home, ye divils ! " or some such 

 rough farewell, and slinks away, poor brute, to pick 

 up a scratch meal as only an Irish dog knows how. 



