Wild Animals

Wild Animals

There are not many wild animals in this district. The most common ones are deer, fox, hedgehog, water dog, hare, rabbit, rat, ferrets, and weasel. The badger, the hare, rabbit, rats and the hedgehog lives in burrows. The hare lives in rushes or long grass. The hare is a very timid animal, it is very easy to waken him. There was once a man and he caught a hare. He skinned him and cured the skin and put it on the back of a vest. One day he was digging potatoes and he took off his vest and left it on the ground. He had a dog with him. The dog lay near the vest. It was not long before the vest ran off and the dog after it and caught it and brought it back to him.

There was a deer once in Castlegrove. He went from that to Knockma. What he used to feed on was grass, turnip and hay. The weasel is a very dangerous animal. There was once a man mowing hay. He had a drink with him in a jug, there was a weasels nest where he was mowing. When he was coming near the nest, the weasel went to where the jug and poisoned the drink. When the man came near the nest he took the nest and mowed there he left the nest back again to the same place. When the weasel saw that she went and spilled the water that was in the jug. That way the man would not get poisoned when he did not touch the nest.

There was a man scattering turf once in the bog and a weasel used to come every day to his jacket. He had a dog with him this day. The dog lied near the jacket. When the weasel came the dog killed him. It was not long until five or six more weasels came and carried him and buried him like a person. The man had to leave the bog with fear.

The fox is a very wise animal. He kills and eats every kind of food. When he kills fowl in the fowl house, he very often cannot come out of some. He lies down as if he was dead until he gets a chance to run away. Then he runs off to his den.

The hedgehog is a very small animal it crawls in the ground. The old people say if you drink soup of a hedgehog is a cure for the chin cough.

The rabbit is a small animal. He lives in a burrow and feeds on grass. The rabbit does not do much harm to the crop as the hare does.

The rat is a very small animal. He lives in holes of stone walls. He does a lot of harm and is a dangerous animal also. There was a house in the village long ago, where there was alot of rats. The woman of the house put down poison to kill the rats. At night when she was in bed a rat came and bit her over the eye. That mark was there until the day she died.

The ferrit [sic] is a very small animal. People has ferrits for hunting rabbits out of their burrows. If they are well trained they often wait in the burrow and would not come out.

The water dog is an animal like any ordinary dog. But he is always black and curly. He lives on bank of rivers and feeds on weeds that grow on the river and on fish.

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