194 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



This proposed Act, however, seems never to have 

 become law, for no mention of it is made in the eight 

 volumes of Irish Statutes published by authority in 

 Dublin in 1765. It is not surprising therefore that 

 the ravages of the Wolves in Ireland continued. In 

 1 619 their numbers in Ulster compelled people "to 

 house their cattle in the bawnes of their castles, 

 where all the winter nights they stood up to their 

 bellies in dirt. Another reason is to prevent thieves . 

 and false-hearted brethren who have spies abroad, 

 and will come thirty miles out of one province into 

 another to practise a cunning robbery."* 



Howell, in one of his " Familiar Letters," written 

 to Sir James Crofts, September 6th, 1624, says : — A 

 pleasant tale I heard Sir Thomas Fairfax relate of 

 a souldier in Ireland, who having got his passport to 

 go for England, as he past through a wood with 

 his knapsack upon his back, being weary, he sate 

 down under a tree wher he open'd his knapsack and 

 fell to some victuals he had ; but upon a sudden he 

 was surpriz'd with two or three Woolfs, who, coming 

 towards him, he threw them scraps of bread and 

 cheese till all was done ; then the Woolfs making a 

 nearer approach unto him, he knew not what shift to 

 make, but by taking a pair of bagpipes which he 

 had, and as soon as he began to play upon them, the 

 Woolfs ran all away as if they had been scar'd out of 

 their wits. Whereupon the souldier said, " A pox 

 take you all, if I had known you had lov'd musick 

 so well, you should have had it before dinner !" 

 * Gainsford's " Glory of England," p. 148. 



