191 1- HiNCH. — Hi^:^h-levcl Marine Shells in Co. Mayo. 193 



day they occur in great quantities. That the site was 

 occupied before the present talus was formed is probable 

 when the large numbers of shells which can be seen in the 

 chinks of it are taken into account. The deposit is 

 certainly not a raised beach, nor a Glacial deposit. In 

 my opinion it is a rock shelter of prehistoric times. 



National Library of Ireland. 



A NOTE ON DOOAGHTRY. 



BY R. LLOYD PRAEGER. 



To Dooaghtry I was introduced by Mr. A. W. Stelfox 

 last July. It is a remote and interesting area, lying at the 

 western base of Mweelrea, between it and the ocean, and 

 forming the northern side of the entrance to Killary Har- 

 bour. Here are sandy beaches, backed not by dunes, but 

 by great stretches of flat sand raised barely above high 

 water mark, and running inland between rocky ridges 

 sometimes as much as a mile, and fringing here and there 

 shallow sand -bottomed lakelets. Great changes in the 

 geography have occurred in recent times, as shown by the 

 fragment of the ancient church and graveyard, raised twenty 

 feet above the surrounding flat, which rises like a little 

 tumulus on the edge of the Owennadornaun River. Its 

 steep sandy slope is strewn with tall, uninscribed slabs, 

 up to nine feet in length, some of which still stand huddled 

 together, marking the graves on the summit. Around the 

 scarp the ends of the cofflns stand out ; and skulls and 

 bones go rattling down the slopfe into the stream, and are 

 carried seaward. 



The Ordnance map of 1839 differs strikingly from that of 

 1899, the latter showing new river -courses and lakes per- 

 viously non-existent. 



Dooaghtry was found by Mr. Stelfox and his party to 

 possess a remarkable and rich molluscan fauna, as will 

 appear from the forthcoming Mollusca paper in the Clare 

 Island series ; but it is to its curious flora that I wish to 

 draw attention. 



A 2 



