I9TI- Notes: :•■■ ^ 185 



A variety of the Magpie Moth. 



When driving home from Ncwry, as I reached the top of the long hill 



down to Poyntzpass, which is here called " Williamson's Hill," I saw a 



very yellow-looking Magpie Moth fluttering along the hedge. I at once 



jumped down and captured it. It proved to be a beautiful variety of this 



common moth [Abraxas grosstilariata). The ground colour of the fore 



wings is pale buff, the yellow blotch at the base and the yellow line 



towards the hind margin are greatly enlarged, especially the latter, in the 



hind wings a yellow patch extends from the anal angle more than half-way 



across the wing, and the black spots are very small. It was captured on 



July 19th. 



W. F. Johnson. 



Povntzpass. \ 



The Money Cowry in Ireland and England 



The older generation of naturalists in Belfast, in the first half of the 



nineteenth century, often had Cypraea moneta sent to them from the 



coast near Bangor, Co. Down. These were supposed to have come 



from an old slave ship wrecked in the vicinity. Some years ago, this 



shell, with a small proportion of C. annulata, was very abundant on the 



Cumberland coast near the mouth of the Calder. As many as 600 



specimens were collected in a few days by one conchologist. These 



shells came from the " Glendowra, " wrecked in a fog near Seascale in 



1873, when homeward bound from Manilla. Part of her cargo consisted 



of sixty tons of cowries, which would amount to about seventy million 



shells in all, so that even now, and for many years to come, there is a 



chance of this shell being found almost anywhere on the north-w> st 



coast of England. 



R. Welch. 



Belfast. 



Pelamys sarda in Irish Water. 



Two specimens of this fish were takenr-on the 14th August in a pollack- 

 net off Broad Strand, Courtmacsherry, Co. Cork. They measured 

 respectively 23^ and 2S\ inches, and weighed 4J and si lbs. Both were 

 males, the smaller with milt running. The larger had swallowed a good- 

 sized mackerel. This species is figured and described under the name 

 given above by Day (" British and Irish Fishes "), and, as Sarda pelamis, 

 by Smith, " Scandinavian Fishes," Ed. 2. It never grows much larger 

 than the Courtmacsherry specimens, and, though not previously noticed 

 on our coast, has been occasionally taken in English and Scots waters, 



and in Norway. 



E. W. L. Holt. 



Fisheries Office, Dublin. 



