140 The Irish Naturalist. 



connection between Kerry and the Spanish peninsula, to which 

 the occurrence of the spotted slug, Geomalacus maculosiis, 

 among the rocks of the south-west, gave some colour ; and our 

 imagination was fired by the fancy of ancient Iberian forms 

 still lingering on among the sheltered valleys of the Kerry 

 hills, or sporadic among the ivSlands that fringe that tumul- 

 tuous coast. Thus Ireland, to the young and imaginative 

 coleopterist, became an enchanted island, where might lie 

 buried unheard of rarities, archaic types of the days of 

 the retreating ice — species new to Britain, or even, exciting 

 thought, new to science, and only describable in the most 

 formal I^atin. Nor, indeed, are such dreams even now 

 proved to be of the ivory gate. It is true we have in the 

 north and east of Ireland observers who are unlikely to leave 

 much undiscovered. We have also many records from Cork 

 and Waterford by the late Dr. Power ; but all the extreme 

 south, and the best part of the west, and the region of the 

 midland bogs, are still virtually a terra incognita, and among 

 these mountains and fens, doubtless there still lies hid much 

 worth the capture. 



After this exordium, we fear the reader will experience 

 some disappointment in discovering that the following notes 

 chronicle no exploration into these wilds, but merely a simple 

 walk along the northern coast of Dublin county, and that of 

 the species captured on that occasion, not one can, by any 

 stretch of credulity, be called rare, and that nearly all are 

 probably well known as occurring in Ireland as well as in 

 England. 



Not far southward from the town of Drogheda are certain 

 islets called by the generic term of Skerries, and hard by, on 

 the mainland, is a village, perhaps more properly a town, of 

 the same name. The derivation of this word seems interesting, 

 and we hazily conjecture that it may possibly be akin to Skel- 

 ligs, as similar rocks on the west coast seem to be called. The 

 point, however, is undetermined, and the town of Skerries not 

 particularly interesting. On this bright, windy. May morning 

 we are glad to get free from its long rows of white cottages, and 

 strike the beach at the south end of the town. The shore here is 

 vShingly high up, rocky lower down, and a low cliff terminates 

 the cultivated land beyond. If you are a geologist, you may 

 notice there exposed a section of drift, sandy or gravelly in 



