THE EXTINCT BRITISH WOLF. 
403 
It happen’d on a day, with horn and hounds, 
A baron gallop’d through MacDermot’s grounds, 
Well hors’d, pursuing o’er the dusty plain 
A wolf, that sought the neighbouring woods to gain : 
Mac hears th’ alarm, and, with his oaken spear, 
Joins in the chase, and runs before the peer, 
Outstrips the huntsman, dogs, and panting steeds, 
And, struck by him, the falling savage bleeds. 
The crest of the O’Quins of Munster is “a wolf’s head, 
erased, argent,” possibly perpetuating the prowess of some former 
noted wolf-hunter in that ancient family. 
The author of 46 The Present State of Great Britain and 
Ireland,” printed in London in 1738, wrote at that date, 
44 Wolves still abound too much in Ireland ; they pray for the 
wolves, least they should devour them.” 
In Smith’s 44 Ancient and Modern State of the County of 
Kerry,” 1756 (of which book Macaulay said, 44 1 do not know 
that I have ever met with a better book of the kind and of the 
size,” 44 Hist. Engl.,” iii. 136), the author, speaking of certain 
ancient enclosures, observes (p. 173) that 44 many of them were 
made to secure cattle from wolves , which animals were not 
entirely extirpated until about the year 1710, as I find by pre- 
sentments for raising money for destroying them in some old 
grand-jury books.” 
Traces of old circular entrenchments, into which cattle and 
sheep were driven for protection from wolves, are still to be 
seen in many parts of Ireland, especially in the south. One of 
these, in the county Tyrone, will be noticed presently. 
In Harris’s edition of Sir James Ware’s 44 Works ” (Dublin, 
1764), the editor, commenting upon the passage, 44 1 shall but 
just hint at the eagerness of the Irish in the chase, as in hunting 
wolves and stags,” remarks in a footnote (p. 165), 44 So said in 
the year 1658. But there are no wolves in Ireland now.” This 
statement in turn may be controverted, upon very respectable 
authority, but the conflict of evidence renders it very difficult 
to fix with certainty the precise date at which the animal be- 
came extinct. 
The following account is given of the destruction, by a noted 
wolf-hunter, of the last wolves in the county Tyrone. 
44 In the mountainous parts of the county Tyrone, the inhabi- 
tants suffered much from wolves, and gave as much for the 
head of one of these animals as they would now give (1829) 
for the capture of a notorious robber on the highway. There 
lived in those days an adventurer who, alone and unassisted, 
made it his occupation to destroy those ravagers. The time for 
attacking them was at night. There was a species of dog kept 
