I i o The Irish Na tic ra list. 



of slabs of limestone, and used in Inisheer to shelter young 

 lambs.' It is much to be regretted that no Irish botanist with 

 an adequate knowledge of the old language of his countr}^ has 

 ever been found to take in hand the preparation of an ex- 

 haustive lexicon of Irish plant-names, founded on personal 

 research among the Irish-speaking peasantry. 



Taking advantage of a favourable breeze on the 30th May, 

 I took passage from Inisheer in one of the Connemara turf 

 hookers, which constantly ply with fuel between the mainland 

 and the islands, and after a run of an hour and a-half landed 

 at the nearest point of the lar-Connaught coast, to the east of 

 Cashla ba}^, and just twelve miles north of Inisheer. I had 

 failed after the closest search in the likeliest places to find any 

 trace of Neotinea intacta, the discovery of which had been one 

 of the chief objects of my visit to the Aran isles. But however 

 modest were the results achieved during my short stay, I had 

 no cause to regret the time and labour spent ; for no one who 

 takes the least interest in botany, or archaeology^, or folk-lore, 

 can fail to find congenial food for his tastes in a survey of this 

 most attractive group. 



Before bringing these disjointed notes to a close, a few words 

 may be said on the Aran flora as a whole. The total of species 

 for the islands, brought up to date, and retaining in the list 

 some three or four which have not been verified for many years, 

 amounts to 419.- Compared with the total of the Howth flora, 

 547 species for an area of only one-fourth the extent,^ the Aran 

 district would appear to be decidedly poor. 



But compared with Ben Bulben, and the similarity of the rock 

 formation here to that of the Aran isles makes the comparison 

 a much fairer one, the Aran flora appears to be decidedly rich. 



* There seems to be no record of their poetic name for the Stone-crop 

 in the Irish Dictionaries of O'Brien or O'Reilly; Cameron in his excel- 

 lent Gaelic names of Plants, Edinluirgh, 1883, omits the vSpecies altogether, 

 and Wade, in his Latin Catalogue of Co. Dublin plants — a work which 

 is very full in Irish plant names — leaves a blank under Seduni anglictwi in 

 the space for the equivalent native name. 



^ Or 420, adding in Primula veris (Cowslip), a species which no botanist 

 has hitherto noticed in the islands, though Miss Kilbride, of the Rectory, 

 Kilronan, assures me that she has found it growing sparingly near Kil- 

 ronan and Killeany, where it flowers much earlier than the Primrose, 

 which latter is abundant in the islands. N.C. 



3 See Mr. H. C. Hart's excellent Flora of Howth. 



