64 The h ish Naturalist. [March, 



the answer is simpl}' this — that we did no injustice to Ireland 

 in excluding them, but merely a justice to England. 



Farther on, however, we come to a charge which, unlike this 

 one of imaginary injustice to Ireland, is fully proved against 

 us. On p. 29 Mr. Hart draws attention to our omission from 

 the list of alpines descending to sea-level in Ireland of the 

 following four species : Saxifraga oppositifolia, Ardostaphylos 

 Uva-ursi, Isoetes lacustris, and Carex aquatilis. We are 

 certainly in error here. These plants should be added to the 

 list on p. xlv of our l7itroductio7i, and Mr. Hart is entitled to 

 our thanks for the detection of this oversight. 



Passing on to p. 36 of the Rema}'ks, we are confronted with 

 a portentous list of no less than 44 items described by our 

 critic as ** a few omissions, &c., which are not dependent on 

 information unavailable for the purposes of the Cybele." On 

 analysis this list turns out to be a critical miscellany, by no 

 means restricted to supposed omissions of our critic's records. 

 Ofthese, however, it includes some 23 items which we shall deal 

 with in groups. The following 6 were omitted as dubious for 

 various reasons : Ra^iunctdus heterophy litis, R. Lingua, Thalic- 

 trumfiexuosumy Helianthenium vulgare, Saxifraga hypiioides, and 

 Atriplex fariiiosa. Eleven others were omitted as superfluous, 

 i.e., Papaver Argemo7ie, Nasttirtium palustre, Sisy^nbritim thalia- 

 nuni, Viola hirta, A^idromeda polifolia, Atriplex portiilacoides, 

 Juniperus nana, Epipadis latifolia,Ophrys apif era, Carex riparia, 

 and Phleum arenariiim. It seems to us that Mr. Hart has 

 least of all Irish botanists any reason to complain that his 

 work has not been given due prominence in the 2nd edition 

 of Cybele. That it was necessary in compiling the book to 

 make a selection from the vast mass of available material is 

 sufficiently obvious. The remaining 6 items of these 23 are 

 perhaps true omissions, that is, omissions by oversight. 

 They are as follows : Arenaria trijiervia and Festuca sylvatica 

 (omitted for District IV.), Taraxacum officijiale var. palustre 

 (omitted for XI.), Arithemis 7iobilis (vertical range omitted), 

 Agrostis vulgaris, var. pu7nila (not credited to Mayo and the 

 Galtees), and Selagi7iella selaginoides (descent to sea level in 

 Donegal omitted). This small number of omissions will be 

 reduced to 4 if, as we are inclined to believe, the MS. referred 

 to by Mr. Hart as lent to one of the editors did not reach him 

 early enough to be availed of, and two of the omitted records. 



