128 WILD ANIMALS. 



/ horror, a full-grown wolf, endentlj the dam, raging furiously at 

 the cries of her young, and rLow close upon the mouth of the 

 cavern, which she had approached unobserved, among the rocky 

 irregularities of the place. She attempted to leap down at one 

 bound from the spot where shg was first seeBL. In this emergency. 

 Poison instinctively threw himself forward on the wolf, and suc- 

 ceeded in clutching a firm hold of the animal's long and bushy 

 tail, just as the forepart of the body was within the narrow en- 

 trance of the cavern. He had unluckily placed his gun against a 

 rock when aiding the boys in their descent, and could not now 

 reach it. Without apprising the lads below of their imminent 

 peril, the stout hunter kept fir'm grip of the wolf's tail, which he 

 wound round his left arm; and although the maddened brute 

 scrambled and twisted, and stt-ove with all her might to force her- 

 self down to the rescue of her cubs. Poison was just d;ble, with the 

 exertion of all his strength, to keep her from going forward. In 

 the midst of the singular strilggle, which passed in silence — for 

 the wolf was mute, and the hunter, either from the efigrossing 

 nature of his exertions, or from his unwillingness td alarm the 

 boys, spoke not a word at the commencement of the conflict — his 

 son within the cave, finding the light excluded from above, asked 

 in Gaelic, and in an abrupt tdne : ' Father, what is keeping the 

 light from us ? * 'If the root of the tail break,' replied he, 

 ' you will soon know that.' Before long, however, the man 

 contrived to get hold of his hunting-knife, and stabbed the wolf 

 in the most vital parts he could reach. The enraged animal now 

 attempted to turn and face her foe, but the hole was too narrow 

 to allow of this ; and when Poison saw his danger, he squeezed 

 her forward, keeping her jammed in, whilst he repeated his stabs 

 as rapidly aS he could, until the animal, being mortally woUndedj 

 Was easily dragged back and finished." 



In Ireland, go late as the year 1710, money was levied on the 

 presentments of the Grand Jury in Cork, for the destruction of 

 wolves in that country ; and this was supposed to be the last 

 record of these animals being seen in that island ; but in Notes and 

 Queries reference is made to a paper written by " H. D. R.," 

 and inserted in the Irish Peiirty Journal, published in Dublin, in 



