3H NATURAL SCIENCE. may, 



Ireland of Naturalists' Field Clubs, which foster the observation of 

 local details and of those seemingly trivial points of difference, the 

 sum total of which forms the natural history of the island. The 

 specialist must be called in to correlate the observations and to 

 decide upon the true nature of the objects collected by the members, 

 but the existence of the field-clubs vastly widens the area over 

 which his material can be procured. 



Mr. R. Lloyd Praegen has recently retraced the history of 

 the four associations that are already in existence. The Belfast 

 Naturalists' Field Club, which now numbers some 500 members, 

 admits archaeology as well as natural history within its scope ; but 

 in its published work it is clear that the more popular study has 

 never been allowed to overshadow the purely scientific branches. 

 The Belfast Club arose in 1863 among the students who had been 

 attracted by Professor R. Tate's courses of lectures in connection with 

 the Science and Art Department. The appendices to its annual 

 reports have now been published as a separate volume, and form a 

 work of constant reference for Irish geologists, botanists, and 

 zoologists. Mr. Stewart, one of the original members, is still ready, 

 in his official position at the Natural History Society's Museum, to 

 give help to the large body of younger workers, field botany having 

 always been a favourite subject in the north. Messrs. C. Lapworth 

 and Wm. Swanston published their famous researches on the graptolite 

 beds of Co. Down in the Reports of the Belfast Field Club ; and 

 Mr. Joseph Wright contributed, and still contributes, to the same 

 publication his observations on fossil and recent Foraminifera. The 

 presence of serious workers like these in the industrial centre of the 

 north has given a distinct stimulus towards scientific investigation ; and 

 the foundations of their published work have been laid, in the manner 

 of true naturalists, during long excursions by field or flood, in the 

 open air. The indoor meetings of the club during the winter provide 

 for the thorough discussion of results ; and the excursions during the 

 fairer season at least serve to introduce the members to the beauties 

 of the country near their homes. The artistic work of that keen 

 observer and photographer, Mr. Robert Welch, has already set per- 

 manently on record hundreds of antiquarian and scientific objects 

 which have been thus examined. Latterly, one excursion, lasting 

 several days, has been made to some point not accessible within the 

 limits of a single day. The members participating in this return 

 with abundant material collected from shore and heath and moun- 

 tain, and with photographs illustrating the details of the geology of 

 the district studied. The days chosen for this excursion include those 

 set apart in the north of Ireland for reviving the political animosi- 

 ties of the Boyne. And thus the Naturalists' Field Club is sustaining 

 the best traditions of science in ignoring completely all traditional 

 differences of class or creed or race. 



8 "The Irish Field Clubs," Irish Naturalist, vol. iii. (1894), pp. 141, 211, and 247. 



