66 The Irish Nafifralist. April, 



were sundry small crabs, and, coiled up in hopeless fashion 

 long sticky nemertines. One saw too on these surfaces white 

 objects recognisable as the moulting and brood-nests of the 

 Obisium. The moulting-nests were in some cases empt}' or 

 contained onh' the moult ; but more often they were tenanted 

 by an animal about to moult or just moulted : while the larger 

 brood-nests, except some old torn ones, contained the im- 

 prisoned female, either with the brood-mass attached or 

 surrounded by the brood of free 3'oung. The 3'oungers at this 

 age are of a beautiful olive-green colour ; and being f ull}^ active 

 they seemed ready at once to make their escape when the 

 nests were opened. 



Next day I arranged to be put down three miles further on 

 the same road near the Cloonee Loughs, and went over to 

 some of the islands ; of these the Middle Lough has man\% the 

 smaller rock}- ones being of great beaut\', standing as they do 

 with bare sides well out of the water, sometimes with Osmunda 

 more than brow-high about flood-level, and about their tops 

 with dense arboreal vegetation, including Arbutus,^ which 

 I here saw for the first time and with much delight. On one of 

 the larger islands in this lough, the sifting of dead leaves 

 brought to light Obisium ^iiiiscorum ; an animal already 

 obtained, b}' the same method of collecting, in one of the 

 woods at the foot of iVIucksna. Afterwards, by the Kenmare 

 Road, were seen some striking varieties o{ Avion «/^r, with the 

 sides pale and the back reddish-brow^n or blackish, or 

 in one case of a deep distinct olive. The like of this last I 

 never saw before : but it appears that olivaceous varieties of 

 this slug are by no means unknown near the shores and on 

 the islands of the West of Ireland."-^' 



The principal business of this excursion, however, was a 

 further search for Obisium- viaritiviuvi on the shores of the 

 bay ; and this animal was found eventualh', behind the rather 

 high island called Ormond's, on a rocky shore, and under 

 conditions somewhat different from those of the previous da}'. 

 On higher parts of the shore among Juncus and Thrift, but 

 still within reach of high-tides, many immature individuals 

 occurred in mouitino-nests under stones ; but the main 

 colonies were lower down, and would no doubt be under rather 

 deep water at every tide. The animal was living here, in fact, 

 in narrow vertical fissures of slaty rocks which were densel}' 



^ Irish Nat., vii. T.S98. pis. iv, and xii. 



2 Sii\ TrauH. Koy. Dub. Soc. (n.s.), iv. (1S91), 555. 



