244 The Irish Naturalist. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL BIOLOGY. 

 The Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological 

 Society. 



For some time an annotated reprint of Charles Smith's quaint 

 and interesting " Antient and Present State of the County and City 

 of Cork " (1750), has been appearing as an appendix to the Journal of 

 the Cork Historical and Arch Ecological Society, and the work has now 

 progressed as far as that portion of Book IV. which deals with the 

 natural historj' of the County. The account as we read it in the original 

 edition is clear enough, but in the reprint it is sufficiently puzzling. 

 First comes the enumeration of the " fish " (from whales down to jelly- 

 fishes), reprinted from the original without comment, but with a number 

 of minor alterations in the text. Following this we find, to our great 

 surprise, a second " Chapter V." in which the freshwater fishes are enu- 

 merated by Mr. A. G. More, F.L.S. This contribution is, we presume, 

 a modern one, but there is not one word to show that we are not dealing 

 with a portion of Smith's book, and that the distinguished writer of this 

 chapter did not flourish in the middle of the eighteenth century. We 

 next come to the birds, and here a fresh surprise awaits us. Smith's 

 chapter is expunged in toto, and in its place we are presented with a full 

 and excellent account of the present avifauna, by Mr. Ussher. At the 

 head of this chapter we are told that it has been " re- written by Mr. R.J. 

 Ussher, J. P.," which saves us from the danger of relegating another of our 

 esteemed contributors to a distant period ; but what connection his valu- 

 able list has with a reprint of Smith's History of Cork it is not easy to un- 

 derstand. Following the birds, are two paragraphs dealing respectively 

 with the mammals and reptiles of the County. No clue is given as to their 

 origin, but as they do not appear in the original book we presume they also 

 are modern insertions. The amphibia are not mentioned, but on scrutiny, 

 we find that the frog, toad, and newt have been classed among the 

 reptiles ! Next conies a useful list of land and freshwater mollusca, by 

 Mr. R. A. Phillips — but again without a word to show that it is another 

 recent insertion. Finally we have, in the last issued part (September), 

 the commencement of Chapter VII., which is devoted to the plants of 

 County Cork. This appears to us to be the best done portion of this 

 very bewildering " reprint." The original account is reproduced (though 

 not so exactly as might be desired) while, distinguished from the text 

 by being enclosed in square brackets, are notes by Mr. N. Colgan, giving 

 the modern synonymy of each plant, and remarks on its distribution. 



While we would heartily welcome the appearance of a Fauna and Flora 

 of Cork, bringing our information up to date, we do not quite know what 

 to say to this strange jumble of ancient and modern science. One re- 

 flection occurs to us — the Arch Ecological Society which in another hun- 

 dred and fifty years reprints the present edition of Smith's " Cork " will 

 have a difficult task in discovering which portions of the work represent 

 the knowledge of 1750, and which that of 1894. It is to be hoped that 

 the biologists of the future will not think that Irish naturalists, in the 

 present year of grace, consider frogs to be reptiles, or whales " fish 

 breathing by lungs." ^ 



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