694 SCIURID^— SCIURUS 



about 1430, and dealing with the trade of Chester. The passage may 

 be quoted in extenso : — 



" I caste to speke of Irelonde but a lytelle, 

 Commoditees yit I woll entitelle, 

 Hydes, and fish, samon, hake, herynge, 

 Irish woUen, lynyn cloth, faldynge, 

 And marternus gode, bene here marchandyse, 

 Hertys hydes, and other of venerye, 

 Skynnes of otere, squerel, and Irysh hare, 

 Of shepe, lambe, and fox, is here chaffare, 

 Ffelles of kydde and conies grete plente, 

 Of silver and golde there is the oore." ' 



At about the same time one Nicholas Arthur of Limerick is 

 definitely mentioned as trading in horses, falcons, skins of otters, 

 martens, squirrels, and other soft-furred animals (Arthur. MSS., 

 Lenihan, Limerick, 369), his first trading voyage having taken place 

 in 1438. Finally, in the late fifteenth century, the skin of the Squirrel 

 was included by Hakluyt amongst the exports of Ireland. 



The above records are ample and conclusive as to the former 

 existence of the Squirrel in Ireland. They are quite satisfactory on 

 all the points which might have been subject to error, e.^: there is no 

 possible confusion with any other animal, and the export and import 

 trades are not confused, a matter of importance when it is remembered 

 that there was in mediaeval times a considerable import trade in 

 Squirrel skins. 



Exactly when the animal became extinct is still a matter of 

 conjecture, but, since it must have previously reached a point at which 

 its pursuit became unprofitable, documents may at any time be 

 discovered throwing light upon it. In the meantime there is little to 

 bridge the gap between the end of the fifteenth century when the 

 squirrel must have been abundant and its reintroduction about 181 5. 

 Its inclusion in O'Flaherty's list of the animals of Western Connaught 

 in 1684 and in Keough's Zoologica Medicinalis Hibernica (p. 83) in 

 1739 are, if unsupported, records of quite doubtful value. Certainly, 

 however, they gain in authority from the other records by which they 

 are now known to have been preceded ; but it would probably be unsafe 

 to argue from them, as some do, that these two records indicate that 

 the Squirrel never became altogether extinct in Ireland. 



Apart from the persecution of man, the cause of the disappearance 

 of the Squirrel from Ireland must always remain doubtful. But the 

 universal destruction of woods, into the remnants of which the beasts 



' Political Songs (Rolls Series, ii., 185, 1861) : reprinted at p. 414 oi Ireland, 

 Industrial and Agricultural, published by the Department of Agricultural and 

 Technical Instruction for Ireland, Dublin, 1902 ; also in Joyce, 433. 



