19 1 8. Irish Societies. 91 



May 4. — Excursion to Rush Bulb Farm. — The excursion season 

 of the Club opened auspiciously with a visit in typical May weather 

 to " Holland, in Ireland," the flourishing bulb farm of Messrs. Hogg and 

 Robertson. A party of nineteen members and friends, leaving Dublin by 

 the 1.35 p.m. train, arri ed at Rush station about 2 o'clock, and after 

 half an hour's walk reached the outskirts of the village and the first section 

 of the farm which " rushes red on the sight " as one tops the rise in the 

 main road from the hollow of Whitestown. Here the party was received 

 by the conductress. Miss Crosbie, manager of the farm, who led the way 

 through the quadrangle of densely massed blooms of Darwin and Cottage 

 tulips, crimson, yellow, violet, vermilion, pink, mar on, orange, and many 

 subtler tints. Each tint was carefully segregated, and every plant fully 

 justified its existence : all were in perfect bloom ; there were no '' blind " 

 bulbs, as the conductress put it in the forcibly figurative language of 

 horticulture. An interesting survival from the Irish vernacular is found 

 here in the word CIai]', still applied locally to the furrows which drain and 

 mark off one from the other the numerous tulip beds. 



Two other sections of the farm, each like the first a chequered mass of 

 bloom and with a soil of almost pure sand, were visited by the party, and 

 the fine display of double Anemones was quite as much admired as the 

 more formal Tulips. In one of these sections a bed of green tulip blooms 

 was pointed out, not as a thing of beauty, but as a triumph of horticultural 

 art. 



Refreshed by an excellent tea in Mrs. Dunne's thatched cottage near 

 the bulb farm, the party returned to Rush station in time for the 6.12 p.m. 

 train to Dublin, each of the nineteen members bearing a huge bouquet of 

 tulips and anemones generously presented by Messrs. Hogg and Robertson. 



DIBLIN AIICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



April 10.- -The Club met at Leinster House. The President (N. 

 CoLGAN, ]M.R.I.A.) in the chair. 



W. F. GuNN exhibited an example of a reputed -J^-inch objective 

 made by Siebert of Berlin. Although in the latter half of last century 

 these high power lenses were often used on test objects, they are now 

 superseded by the modern achromatic and apo-chromatic immersion 

 objectives, which allow much longer working distances, with greater 

 penetration and defining power. 



May 8. — The Club met at Leinster House. W. F. Gunn was elected 

 President and H. A. Lafferty Vice-president for the session 1918-19. 



Prof. G. H. Carpenter and F. J. S. Pollard showed sections through 

 the vestigial lateral spiracles and their solidified tracheal connections, 

 recently detected in the fourtli -stage larva of the Warble-flies (Hypoderma), 

 and previously shown to the Club. These interesting structures have now 

 been fully described and figured by the exhibitors {Proc. R. I. Acad., vol. 

 xxxiv., B, No. 4, 191 8). 



