3o6 The Irish Naturalist, November, 



The programme of the Smoking Concert g-Iven by the Ulster Medical 

 Society, in which extracts from the Presidential and Sectional addresses 

 were illustrated at the expense of the orators, was one of the best thing-s 

 of the meeting, and recalled the joking in connection with the famous Red 

 Lion Club. A local artist, Miss Praeger, supplied the drawings. 



REVIEW. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION HANDBOOK. 



A Guide to Belfast and the Counties of Down and Antrim. 



Prepared for the Meeting of the British Association by the Belfast 

 Naturalists' Field Club. Belfast : M'Caw, Stevenson, and Orr, Ltd. 

 Pp. 8 + 284. Three maps, many illustrations. 2s, 



As an important Irish scientific handbook, the '* Guide to Belfast and the 

 Counties of Down and Antrim," prepared by the Belfast Naturalists' Field 

 Club on behalf of the Local Committee, and presented by the latter to each 

 member and associate of the British Association, deserves more than a 

 passing notice. As we are reminded in the preface, it was the Belfast Field 

 Club who inaugurated the series of local handbooks that are now an indispen- 

 sable feature of the Association's meetings. The Guide which they issued 

 in connection with the 1874 meeting has long remained a useful work of 

 reference both to the local naturalist and to the visitor. Now, after twenty- 

 eight years, a new generation of Field Club members was called on to com- 

 pile a new handbook. Great strides have been made in many branches 

 of local science in the interval, and the Club had here an opportunity of 

 producing almost an ideal Guide — one which might rank as a model of 

 what such a book should be. The work placed in our hands at the meeting 

 is well written, well illustrated, and well printed, yet it hardly comes up to 

 the high expectations which we had formed of it. Perhaps our expecta- 

 tions were too high, for the Guide is undoubtedly the most concise, 

 accurate, and attractive work of the kind yet produced in Ireland. 



The book opens with a chapter on " Belfast : historical and descriptive," 

 by John Vinycomb, and the author's name is a guarantee of the quality of 

 the work. This is followed by ** Belfast : its trade and commerce," by 

 Alec Wilson. While Belfast is thus amply dealt with, it is surprising to find 

 no historical or topographical account of the Counties of Down and Antrim, 

 with the natural history and archaeology of which the remainder of the 

 book deals. In this respect the work contrasts unfavourably with the 1874 

 Guide, which contained a good abridged account of the history of Uladh 

 and its subdivisions Dalriada and Dalaraidhe, and historical and descriptive 

 notices of the principal towns of the two counties. A couple of pages were 

 even devoted in the former Guide to the ethnology of the district ; but, in 

 spite of the advance of knowledge, this vital subject is not touched on in the 



