within a stone's throw
of the sea. Very good cottage accommodation in summer season.

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Natural History of the South and West of Ireland.

By R. LLOYD PRAEGER, B.A., B.E., &c.

The Natural History of the South and West of Ireland possesses a special
and peculiar interest in the occurrence in this region of a number of
plants and animals which are rare in or absent from Great Britain and
the adjoining portions of Europe. Let us first consider the general
geographical features of this area, and the geological characters which
have produced those features. Ireland has often been likened to a
saucer, consisting as it does of a great central plain, fringed with
mountain groups disposed around the coast. The plain has a slightly
undulating floor of Carboniferous limestone; the groups of hills are
mostly formed of older rocks, which break through the level limestones.
On our journey from Dublin to Athlone, or from Dublin to Mallow, we pass
across typical portions of the central plain; and the brown ridges of
Slieve Bloom and Devil's Bit, and the greener heights of the Galtees,
furnish good examples of the masses of older rocks that rise out of the
plain.

In considering the features and natural history of this wide area, it
will be convenient to divide it into districts, which we shall treat of
in the following order:--

1. Wicklow and Wexford.

2. Waterford and East Cork.

3. West Cork and Kerry.

4. Clare and East Galway.

5. West Galway and West Mayo.

6. Sligo.

7. The Central Plain and River Shannon.

1. ~WICKLOW AND WEXFORD.~--Here we are on the East Coast, looking across
St. George's Channel towards the shores of Wales. The lovely county of
Wicklow is the most mountainous in Ireland, having 180 square miles over
1,000 feet elevation, and 25 square miles over 2,000. Wexford is lower
and more fertile. The coasts of both counties are in great measure flat
and sandy, and are the home of many rare plants. A number of species of
light soils and of gravelly shores have here their Irish headquarters,
such as the Round-headed Trefoil (_Trifolium glomeratum_) the Sea-Stock
(_Matthiola sinuata_), the rare Sea-Cudweed (_Diotis candidissima_), and
the Wild Asparagus (_A. officinalis_). The Murrough, a great gravel
beach backed by salt marshes which extends from Greystones to Wicklow,
and the marshes of the River Slaney, may be specially recommended to the
naturalist. These