1924. Notes. 97 



have been written by none but an observer of extraordinary acuteness and 

 patience, and who claimed to have seen the bird in question near Dun- 

 fanaghy, Co. Donegal, on the 2nd of August, 1902. Mr. Howard's note 

 to the Zoologist on the subject was quoted in full in this Journal (voli 

 xi., p. 324), and called forth at the time no comment or criticism of any 

 kind ; so we are now without information as to the exact grounds on which 

 Mr. Ussher six years later hesitated to accept it as convincing. Tlie 

 fact that the Cirl Bunting appears to be one of the least addicted of all 

 British Birds to over-sea migration probably did something to increase 

 his wish for irresistible proof before adding it to the Irish list. 



Dublin. C. B. Moffat. 



Southern Plants in Eastern Ireland. 



I am much obliged to Miss Knowles for drawing attention (p. 48 

 supra) to Mr. Britten's note on the Irish record for Erica stricta, which 

 I had quite forgotten when I wrote about this plant. The existence of 

 this old record, backed by a specimen, considerably alters the situation, 

 and gives rise to a lively hope that this plant may actually be indigenous 

 in the North-east. The addition of so notable a plant of the N.W. ^Nledi- 

 terranean to the flora of the British Isles would be of the highest import- 

 ance, and I trust that northern botanists will ransack the neighbourhood 

 of Agnew's Hill and of Downhill for it. It is little wonder that Stewart 

 discarded this old record, in view of the knowledge then available of the 

 range of southern plants in Ireland ; but we have had in recent years to 

 revise in many respects our views on this subject. The occurrence in 

 Strangford Lough, for instance (and on the Shannon) of the Mediterranean 

 Giyceria festuccsformis presents an encouraging parallel to Erica stricta. 

 The abundance of Spiranthes Romanzoffiana around Lough Neagh shows 

 that the South-west can no longer be regarded as the focus of the American 

 element ; and now Mr. Stelfox announces his startling discovery of Saxi- 

 fraga umbrosa, one of our western Lusitanians, on Lugnaquilla. 



The occurrence of members of our Lusitanian, Mediterranean or 

 American plant-groups in eastern as well as western Ireland, is not in 

 itself a surprising thing, for in their homes these plants display no pre- 

 ference for soil or climate which would fit them for one side of Ireland 

 more than the other. The surprise lies rather in the fact that they 

 remained so long overlooked in the well-worked east, though long since 

 known from the west. So long ago as 1895, Prof. Carpenter, discussing 

 {I.N., iv., 217) the finding of Otiorrynchus auropunctatus along the eastern 

 coast, drew attention to the occurrence of a whole group of southern 

 animals in eastern Ireland. To account for this, he envisaged a forking 

 of the migration-line from the south, one branch running up the west 

 coast, the other following the now submerged river-valley that drained 

 the Irish Sea lake and passed south-westward along St. George's Channel 

 {In the case of upland species this route might equally Well have lain 

 along the south-eastern hill-ranges, which are still practically continuous). 

 Later {I.N., xii, 257-8) when discussing Giyceria festuccsformis, I pointed 



