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 IN CAMP ON I,OUGH ERNK 



BY R. I,I,OYD PRAKGKR, B.A., M.R.I. A. 



At the end of June last, in company with my friend and 

 co-secretary of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, Mr. 

 Francis Joseph Bigger, I spent three delightful summer days 

 among the islands of lower Lough Erne. A good friend in 

 Knniskillen, w^ho is well known to Irish scientists as the 

 discoverer of rarities in more than one department of 

 science, obligingly procured for us a tent, a boat, and a 

 captain and crew: our captain, a very important part of the 

 equipment, was Patrick Murphy, an able and experienced 

 boatman, whom I can safely recommend to any friends who 

 may wish to explore the beauties of this fine lake; quiet and 

 obliging, and cautious also, as one needs to be on these large 

 sheets of inland water, which are often set with dangerous 

 sunken reefs, and liable to squalls that have before now 

 proved fatal to some of our best Irish botanists. Our crew 

 consisted of Dick, a bright lad, whose idea of bliss was to 

 roam the wooded islands with us in search of butterflies and 

 ducks' nests, and throw stones at the gulls and rabbits. Our 

 tent was pitched on the eastern side of Great Paris Island, 

 under a group of tall Scotch firs, with a spreading oak on 

 either hand, under which the bracken rose full six feet high, 

 though not 3^et fully expanded. In front, a low belt of young 

 birches, and then the lake, stretching away to the wooded 

 shores of the mainland. At four o'clock every morning the 

 sun, rising over the fir-woods of Gublusk Point, came bursting 

 out over the water, and poured in a flood of light right into 

 our tent. Then we would be up and astir, have a swim in the 

 lake and a hurried cup of coffee, and away in our boat among 

 the islands in the cool morning air, to return at nine or ten 

 for breakfast. Then off again, not to be back till long after 

 sundown, when a hearty meal, to which we did ample justice, 

 was followed by an examination of the day's spoil, and a 

 quiet smoke over the glowing embers, as we perched on the 

 water-carved and moss-grown blocks of Calp sandstone and 

 Old Red conglomerate which bestrewed the shore, watching 

 the shadows darkening, and the ducks flapping about on the 

 still water, brought the day to a close. 



The greater part of our time during our short stay was 

 spent in landing on island after island, rambling through the 

 luxuriant woods with which most of them are clothed, or 

 beating the dense scrub and long grass which cover others. 

 Both of us were interested in the many birds which breed 

 about the lake, and while my friend's attention was also 

 directed to lepidoptera, I made some notes on the flora of the 

 district. The avifauna of Lough Erne is decidedly rich, and 



