574 NOTES ON IRISH NATURAL HISTORY. 



litical and imsectarian philanthropists, — men who took a hu- 

 man view of the human wants and human failings of these 

 poor islanders, — would settle among them, and place in their 

 hands the plough and the spade, teach the children to read 

 and write, the boys to make shoes and coats, to fish, and to 

 dig, and rake, and sow, and reap, and build houses, and the 

 girls to knit, and spin, and make gowns, — use them like 

 brothers, sisters, and children, — then might this island be- 

 come a centre of happiness and prosperity. 



At Mr. Long's, on the banks thrown up to divide the fields, 

 and in land not yet fully reclaimed, I observed Osmunda re- 

 galis in most luxuriant bushes ; he complained of it as a weed 

 that gave much trouble. Aspidium dilatatum was equally 

 common : in the former part of my paper, at page 551, I spoke 

 of the Irish concave variety as being the Asp. dumetorum of 

 Mackay, supposing that the Asp. dumetorum of Smith was dif- 

 ferent. I have since learned from Mr. Moore, of Dublin, that 

 he has seen the very plants on which Sir J. E. Smith founded 

 his species ; they are still growing in the Botanic Garden at 

 Liverpool, and are decidedly of that variety called dumetorum 

 by Mackay, concavum by Babington, and recurvum byBree, 

 in < Mag. Nat. Hist.' vol. iv. p. 162> fig. 32,— the figure is 

 a very good one. I saw the specimens myself when at Liver- 

 pool towards the end of August last, but not meeting with 

 Mr. Sheppard the curator, I was not aware they were those to 

 which Sir J. E. Smith alludes. I am anxious to correct my 

 error on this subject, as the observation implied an inaccu- 

 racy on the part of Mr. Mackay. Mr. Babington' s plant (the 

 identical specimen is before me) is elongated, and rendered 

 more vigorous by having grown in the vicinity of a waterfall. 



Coasting the island as nearly as I could accomplish it from 

 Dukinelly, I at length reached Achill Sound, and then cross- 

 ed to the inn on the other side. Near this place I observed 

 a great quantity of heath ; some of the Erica cinerea being 

 beautifully white. I also gathered what at the time appeared 

 to me an unusual variety of Erica Tetralix, the leaves being 

 shorter, broader, and very white beneath ; I afterwards learned 

 that this is the Erica Mackaiana. I am too shallow a bo- 

 tanist to offer any opinion as to its being specifically distinct, 

 particularly as it is stamped with the weighty authority of Sir 

 W. J. Hooker. 



Returning over Coraan Achill to Newport, I bent my course 

 southward to Westport, and thence to the little place called 

 Leenanc, at the head of the Killery. The scenery here is wild 

 and picturesque ; the rocks are covered with Saxifraga um- 

 broza, I use the name in ignorance, not knowing the genera 



