I904- Notes, 



99 



and also the posterior portion of the skull of a Reindeer with the antlers 

 still attached, and he informed me that these remains were found about 

 fifteen feet apart, but on the same level five feet below the surface of the 

 soil in white marl, and that there was sand under the marl, but neither 

 sand nor turf above it. He thought that there was probably peat above 

 the marl formerly, and that it had been entirely cut away for fuel. 



I should be glad to hear from any reader of the Irish Naturalist of any 

 discovery in the country of Reindeer remains, and of the circumstances 

 of their occurrence, as it would be of great interest to ascertain whether 

 this northern species lived together with the Irish Elk in Ireland, which 

 deer, we have reason to believe, came to us from the south. 



R. F. SCHARFF 

 National Museum, Dublin. 



BOTANY. 



Glyceria festucseformis in Ireland. 



The reply of Mr. Praeger to my remarks on the possibility of Glyceria 

 festticceformis being an alien in County Down, does not embrace all that 

 should be said. To get at the truth in a question of natural history like 

 this, both sides should be duly stated and weighed. Mr. Praeger is an 

 able advocate, but he is a special pleader. For there is an omission in 

 his reply which reduces the force of his elaborate arguments. 



Though I know Strangford Lough, the Ards, the Quoil, and Comber 

 for more than fifty years, and think I might be able to show Mr. Praeger 

 something about their plants and casuals which he does not know, I 

 acknowledge that I got the idea of the possibility of the seed of this 

 grass being introduced with grain in a foreign ship from Mr. Praeger 

 himself! His words, in his original account of his discovery in the 

 Ards, are : — " That the plant is indigenous there can be no shadow of 

 doubt. In the whole of Strangford Lough there is no port where 

 foreign vessels call." This surely implies that if such port or ship had 

 ever existed there w^ould be a possibility of the plant having been intro- 

 duced by it. The words mean nothing else. In his reply Mr. Praeger 

 does not take the slightest notice of having made this admission. But 

 he cannot get over it. 



Then, as to the Mills and Distillery at Comber, Mr. Praeger, who, in 

 his original account, did not even allude to their existence, now tells us 

 he knew all about them, and the seeds they deposit about Comber. 

 While he would have us understand that nothing but "Corn weeds" 

 seeds are ever imported with Mediterranean barley. Why, I know of 

 fourteen grasses that have been from time to time so imported, and 

 specimens of some of these are now in my herbarium. It would be an 

 interesting experiment to get a bag of the siftings and sweepings that 

 contain these foreigners, and grow them for a season. 



I did not state that the cargo or cargoes of which I had been informed 

 and which I quoted, was the only Mediterranean grain that had ever 



