22 DUBLIN UNIVEESITY 



cast away. I endeavoured to show her how she was wasting a large 

 portion of salt in preserving what was useless : she replied, ' we always 

 leaves the heads on gurnits;' and this she repeated so often as to make 

 it seem hopeless that she would not continue the old practice. Having 

 passed the Zostera, we continued dredging; caught sundry Crustacea, and 

 got a few shells and Algse, but nothing rare. 



" We landed on Straw Island, where we found the Matthiola in great 

 profusion. It is the parent of the stock-gillyflower of the gardens ; it 

 is all purple, and possesses much more odour, I think, than the ' tame' 

 plants. We found here the eggs of the tern (Sterna Mr undo), and I 

 shot the beautiful Hcematopus ostralegus, or oyster-opening plover. 



" The Dean got at the cottage a curious little article that is some- 

 times hung about the necks of children, particularly, we learned, in the 

 county Clare ; it is called a plough-tackle, and consists of a ring of iron, 

 having little trinkets, shaped like the various parts of a plough, of the 

 same metal, on it. We saw a hooker, which had come from Connemara, 

 leaving the island, being unable to find a purchaser for its cargo of turf 

 at ten shillings, though the article is a chief necessary. The people 

 seemed in great apprehension of an inroad from the starving people of 

 Clare, who threatened an invasion, not to take away the potatoes gratis, 

 but by force, paying one pound a barrel ; showing a curious mixture of 

 justice and robbery : justice, as a pound was more than fair value ; 

 robbery, as force was concerned. 



"Leaving this island, we now reached the middle one; it being 

 late, we hurried along, but saw several interesting matters : three 

 druidical altars, consisting of a large flag, supported by two others ; 

 these stood on fields of flagstones, within a short distance of each other. 

 It is strange that three islands so very near each other should seem to 

 have been inhabited by people who have left such marks of their having 

 been distinct races, as the buildings evince. We observed here, as in- 

 deed all through, the extraordinary love the people seemed to bear to 

 the O'Flaherty. 



" We saw on the island the Astragalus and Adiantum, and on the 

 shore the Trochus crassus. It was here last year I found Bangia, a purple 

 Alga, growing both in fresh and salt water. We were much delighted 

 with a rich display of luminous creatures, of a species I never saw before. 

 It was about 1 1 o'clock r. m., and they appeared around us in vast profu- 

 sion ; but when I let down my dredge into the Zostera it was really 



