Notes on the Marten (Maries sylvatica) in Ulster. 109 



Co. Monaghan. — My only note for this county is one on the authority 

 of Sir John Leslie, who informs me that a Marten was trapped by his 

 keeper at Glasslough in 1891. 



Co. Tyrone.— On the 24th June, 1887, Mr. Sheals received a Marten 

 from Cookstown ; I have no other records. 



I am well aware this list of recent occurrences must be very 

 far from complete, but I would express the hope that the 

 publication of it will be the means of bringing in fresh informa- 

 tion about this interesting and scarce animal. Almost nothing 

 is known about its occurrences in Counties Armagh, Cavan, 

 Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone, and I shall be very 

 grateful for notes from these counties. All communications 

 addressed to me at Malone Park, Belfast, will be promptly 

 acknowledged. 



PROCEEDINGS OF IRISH SOCIETIES. 



Royal Zoological Society. 



Recent donations comprise fresh-water fish from F. Godden, Esq. ; 

 two pairs of Pigeons from J. B. O'Callaghan, Esq. ; and a Heron from 

 T. Harey, Esq. Twelve monkeys and forty Water-fowl have been 

 acquired by purchase. 



12,900 persons visited the Gardens in March. 



Dublin Microscopical Club. 



March 15th— The Club met at Mr. W. Archer's. 



Prof. Cole exhibited a section and specimen of a Variolite (altered 

 coarsely spherulitic basalt glass), from near Ballagh Bridge, coast of 

 Mourne, a fifth locality for this rare rock in the British Isles. The 

 distinction between the dusky spherulites and the green altered glassy 

 groundmass is well seen in this example, which is, as in other cases, 

 clearly the result of rapid cooling of a basalt dyke. 



Professor Cole also exhibited a section from another of the numerous 

 dykes of Mourne, in which skeleton-crystals of the constituents of bas- 

 altic andesite have developed with a beauty and abundance such as occurs 

 more usually in artificial slags. 



Prof. T. Johnson exhibited a living specimen of Halosphaera viridis, 

 Schmz., a minute globular green alga, which was found floating at the 

 surface of the sea by the exhibitor, when with the fishery survey boat 

 " Harlequin," in April, 1891, off the coast of Galway. The material 

 exhibited had been sent from Plymouth by Mr. Garstang, who had taken 

 it there in the tow-net for a month past. The life-history of the weed 

 is incompletely known, and it is hoped, by the examination of specimens 

 now under cultivation, to make it known. Halosphaera was first observed 

 at Naples, several years later at Plymouth, by Mr. Cunningham, and in 

 1891 along the south and west coasts of Ireland. As a source of food 

 supply and as an oxygenator of the sea-water it must be regarded as an 

 important economic plankton member. 



Mr. G. H. Carpenter showed female specimens of Orthezia cataphracta, 

 Shaw, collected at the foot of Slieve Glah, Co. Cavan, by Mr. J.N. 

 Halbert. This insect belongs to the Coccida, and is covered with a white, 

 waxy secretion, arranged in symmetrical plates. Two of these project 



