xxvi PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



equally abundant, for we find by the Journals of the House of Commons that in 1662 Sir 

 John Ponsonby reported from the Committee of Grievances that a bill should be brought 

 in to encourage the killing of wolves and foxes. Effective measures for this purpose 

 appear to have been taken, and the wolf was at last extirpated about the year 1710. 

 Dr. Smith, in his ' History of Kerry,' when speaking of certain ancient enclosures, 

 observes that many of them were made to secure cattle from wolves, which animals were 

 " not finally extirpated till the year 1710, as I find by presentments for raising money for 

 destroying them in some old grand-jury books.'' 



According to Mr. Thompson 1 three wolf-hills in Ireland claim their names from the 

 killing of the last wolf, " one in the south, another near Glenairn, and the third three 

 miles from Belfast." 



The mischief done by these destructive creatures may be estimated by the various 

 orders relating to them, which have been extracted from the Council Books preserved in 

 Dublin by Mr. Hardiman. 2 



In 1652 the export of " wolfe dogges " was declared to be illegal by Cromwell's 

 Government, " because the wolves doe much increase and destroy many cattle." In the 

 following year also in the preamble of a Declaration touching the Tone it is stated that 

 "many times poore children, who lost their parents or deserted by them, are found exposed 

 to, some of them fed upon by, ravening wolves, and other beasts and birds of prey." 

 This increase of the wolves is directly traceable to the devastated condition of Ireland after 

 the rebellion had been ruthlessly stamped out by Cromwell. In the same year there 

 is a third declaration ordering the destruction of wolves, to which their final extirpation 

 in 1710 may be directly assigned. " And it is further ordered that all such person or per- 

 sons who shall take, kill, or destroy any wolfes, and shall bring forth the head of the woulfe 

 before the said Commanders of the Revenue, shall receive the sums following, viz. for every 

 bitch wolfe, six pounds : for every dogg wolfe, five pounds ; for every cubb which preyeth for 

 himself, forty shillings ; for every suckling cubb, ten shillings : and no woolfe after the last 

 of September until the 10th of January be accounted a young woolfe, and the Commis- 

 sioners of the Revenue shall cause the same to be equallie assessed within their precincts." 



The date of the disappearance of the wolf from England, Scotland, and Ireland 

 affords a clue to the physical condition of those countries at the time. The hunter had 

 destroyed the only formidable carnivores to the shepherd and husbandmen in England 

 before the close of the fourteenth century, in Scotland in 1686, and in Ireland in 1710, 

 and the two survivors — the bear and wolf — of the band of larger heads of prey that 

 dwelt here in the Pleistocene, Prehistoric, and Historic ages finally passed away from 

 Great Britain and Ireland along with the forests and the morasses, in which they found 

 shelter and food. 



1 'Nat. Hist, of Ireland,' vol. iv, p. 34. 



2 'A Chorographical Description of West Connaught,' by Roderic O'Flaherty ; edit. James Hardiman, 

 Dublin: Note D, p. 180. 



s 'Arctic Zoology,' 4to, introd., p. iv. 



