IRISH WILD ANIMALS. xxv 



The Wild Animals of Ireland. 



The Mammalia now living x in Ireland are, with a few exceptions, identical with those 

 of Great Britain. The common hare is replaced by a variety of the Lepus variabilis, or 

 the Alpine species, found in Britain only in the highlands of Scotland. The stag, which 

 was formerly abundant, still lingers in the wildest portions of Connaught, and lived near 

 Killarney and in Tipperary in the year 1840. The precise date of the introduction of 

 the fallowdeer, and of the roe, cannot be ascertained, but they certainly were introduced 

 after the reign of Henry II, since the acute observer Girald Barry expressly states that 

 they were not found in the country in his time. They were most probably brought over 

 by some of the English lords, who were in the habit, in the beginning of the twelfth 

 century, of keeping animals for pleasure and sport. 2 Girald Barry 3 also notices the 

 absence of the beaver, and distinguishes between the wild boar and the forest-hog, and 

 notes the extreme ugliness of the former animal. 



The existence in Ireland of two distinct wild strains, which most probably may be 

 referred to the wild boar and the turf-hog, of Prof. Riitimeyer, is confirmed by the mention 

 of the " wild hog " and the " wild boar " among the animals paid for a ransom, in a 

 manuscript preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. 4 The wild boar, according to Dr. 

 Scouler, was plentiful as late as the seventeenth century, while the memory of the bear is 

 preserved only in a tradition which may be of no historical value. St. Donatus, the 

 Bishop of Fesole (died in 840), writes that in that happy isle " Ursorum rabies nulla 

 est ibi !" 



The wolf lived in Ireland late into the Historic period, and its ravages have caused 

 its existence to be placed on record after the English conquest. Dr. Scouler, who 

 has collected nearly all the notices on the point (' Journ. Geol. Soc. Dub.,' vol. i, p. 225), 

 writes : 



" Great numbers of wolves formerly existed in Ireland, and they maintained their 

 ground in this country for a longer period than many other parts of the empire. Campion, 

 whose 'History of Ireland' was published in 1570, informs us that wolves were objects 

 of the chase. ' They (the Irish) are not, he says, without wolves, or greyhounds to hunt 

 them, bigger of bone and limme than a colt.' A century later they appear to have been 



1 The authorities for the Irish Mammalia used in this paragraph are— Thompson, 'Nat. Hist. Ireland,' 

 vol. iv, 1836; Scouler, 'Journ. Geol. Soc. Dublin,' vol. i, p. 225; Ball, 'Trans. R. I. Acad.,' 10th 

 December, 1849; Wilde, 'Proceed. R.I. Acad.,' vol. iv, p. 41C, and vol. vii, p. 193; Giraldus Cambrensis, 

 ' Topographia Hibernise.' 



2 Alexander Neckam, ' De Naturis Rerum,' edit, by T. Wright, Esq., 8vo., 1863; Rolls' Pub- 

 lication. 



3 'Topographia Hibernia?.' The roebuck is mentioned in a poem preserved in Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and ascribed to the ninth century, but the evidence as to its date is not satisfactory. See Sir W. 

 Wilde, 'Proceed. Royal Irish Acad.,' vol. vii, p. 193. 



4 ' Proceed. Royal Irish Acad.,' vol. vii, p. 193. 



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