igoo.] CotGAN AND SCUI.I.Y. — Ronarks on Cybele Hibetnica, 6i 



the name for the living tree as distinguished from the dead 

 bog-deal. Though we have little doubt as to the validity of 

 our conclusion that the vScotch Fir as a native Irish plant 

 " had become quite rare if not extinct in very early times," 

 that conclusion can no longer be based on the absence of a 

 native name for it from the spoken language. But it may 

 fairly be based on its rarity as a component in Irish place- 

 names. We are further indebted to Mr. Hart for his reminder 

 that he has already recorded the survival in Co. Galway of the 

 old name for the Irish Spurge, Meaca?i buidhe (Makinboy of 

 Threlkeld, aiiglice yellow tap-rooted plant). We overlooked 

 his interesting record of this in the Journal of Botany for 



1873- 

 To conclude our remarks on this subject, we agree with our 



critic that an exhaustive work, botanical, philological, and 



historical on Irish plant-names would be of great interest, and 



one of us has already ventured to sketch the outlines of such 



a work in the hope that he may some day succeed in amassing 



materials sufficiently copious and trustworthy to justify 



publication. 



Origin of the Cantabrian Group* 



However intimate one's acquaintance may be with the laws of 

 plant-life and with the conclusions and theories of geologists, 

 he can never hope to arrive at any very positive opinion on 

 such a question as this. One must studiously guard against 

 any approach to dogmatism in discussing it, and this we have 

 endeavoured to do in our brief paragraph on the subject where 

 we preface our suggestions with these words : '* the hypothesis 

 which regards them" [the Cantabrian group of plants] "as 

 relics of a once widespread pre-glacial flora seems to be the one 

 which, however open to objection, presents the least difficulty." 

 We have little objection to make to Mr. Hart's discussion of 

 this highly debatable question, one with which he is peculiarly 

 fitted to deal by reason of his practical acquaintance with the 

 Arctic flora. He points out most forcibly the great difficulty 

 in the way of accepting the hypothesis we favour, the difficulty, 

 that is, of imagining the Cantabrian group to have survived in 

 Ireland throughout the last Glacial Period. It is a real 

 difficulty; but it is, we conceive, an exaggeration of it to 

 characterise the Cantabrian and Alpine groups as respectively 



A4 



