/s the Frog a Native 0/ Ireland f 97 



numbers, both before and after the time mentioned." So it is 

 evident that, after this single apparition, the hind did not 

 bring forth frogs abundantly, owing. Dr. Scharff suggests, to 

 the ducks, an explanation which did not suggest itself to 

 Giraldus. Nor does the frog sculptured on tlie Drumcree 

 cross, as Dr. Scharff freel}^ acknowledges, prove much. For, 

 on the same most interesting but much weather-worn relic 

 there is the representation of a camel (so most archx-ologi.sts 

 hold, though others have declared it " very like a whale"), 

 but no one would thence infer that the camel was indigenous 

 to Ireland. 



To me the two real cruxes propounded in the interesting 

 paper I am discussing seem to be the following: — Firstly, 

 the presence of the bones of a frog in the deposits of the 

 Ballynamintra caves. Now, if it be beyond question that the 

 stratum in which these were found was extremely ancient, 

 and not a surface deposit, it would be very convincing, but 

 would it be possible to ascertain whether the remains might 

 not be that of our undoubtedly indigenous Natterjack? The 

 second difficulty put forward is the present wide distribution of 

 Rana temporaria^v^hioh occurs more abundantly, we are assured, 

 in the west than in the east of Ireland ; while its introduction 

 has been alleged to have taken place not more than 200 years 

 ago. Now, as to its greater abundance in the marshes and 

 mountains of the w^est, this is only to be expected, once it 

 became naturalised there. It could not well be more nume- 

 rous, however, in the fens of Wicklow than it is, and in such 

 ponds and streams as exist in the county of Dublin. And 

 when we consider that about twenty-five miles up the stream 

 of the lyiffey we reach the confines of the Bog of Allen, which 

 extends almost continuously to the placid floods of the 

 Shannon, and the series of lakes and lakelets of its upper 

 reaches which drain the extensive bogs of Leitrim, Longford, 

 and Roscommon, I do not think that it would be at all sur- 

 prising if the spawn of so prolific an animal placed on the 

 banks of the Lifiey in the then marshy recreation fields of 

 Trinity College, outside of Dublin, should find its way to Achill 

 in, say, 100 years. F'or the aquatic birds which Dr. Scharff 

 arrays on his side of the question to keep the batrachian hosts 

 in check do undoubtedly aid in its distribution by carrying the 

 spawn from marsh to marsh, and so probably to Achill. While 



