178 The Irish Nattiralisi. 



have been in the second year of plumage. It was tame and easy of ap- 

 proach, as I find all these northern stragglers, as was the case when I 

 fell in with the Surf Scoter, and some of the white-winged gulls some 

 time ago, I am now of opinion that if a good look-out were kept along 

 our bold headlands in the autumn and winter, many rare stragglers could 

 be found as they straggle down from the far north and mix up with the 

 migratory birds which frequent our bays in winter. Barnacle, Brent, and 

 many diving ducks. The bird is now in the possession of Edwin Bayles, 

 Esq., of Birmingham, whose collection will be one of the finest in the 

 kingdom. The bird in question was examined by Dr. Bowdler Sharp, of 

 the British Museum, and by Messrs. Seebohm and Saunders.— J. R. 

 vSheridan, Dugort, Achill Isle. 



Iceland Gull (Larus Icucopterus) at Londonderry. — On nth 

 April at 11.45 a.m., I saw an Iceland Gull hovering about the quay here 

 along with some Herring Gulls. The birds were feeding on some gar- 

 bage thrown from one of the vessels. I noticed the lighter colour of the 

 Icelander and watched it until it circled above and below me, within ten 

 yards. I noted the following particulars on the spot. About the size of 

 large Herring Gull, but body heavier, back and wings very light grey, 

 tips of wings for some inches quite white, bill pale yellow, legs and feet 

 (lull red. The bird had lost the second and fourth primaries and one or 

 two of the secondaries of right wing, so that I was able to spot it among 

 the other gulls one or two days afterwards. — D. C. CampbeIvTv, Ballynagard, 

 Londonderrv 



GEOLOGY. 



Loug^h Neagh Petrifactions. — In connection with Mr. Swanston's 

 valuable paper on the "Silicified Wood of Lough Neagh," the following 

 very early and very circumstantial version of the popular fable may be 

 read with interest. It is found on one of the descriptive scrolls of Fra 

 Mauro's famous Mappamondo, a projection of the sphere executed in 1459 

 by a monk of Camaldoli, and preserved in the Archaeological Museum at 

 Venice. Having made a careful transcript from the original many years 

 ago, I give a rendering here of so much of the passage as clearly relates 

 to Lough Neagh, from which it will be seen that this version of the fable 

 corresponds very closely with that quoted by Mr. Swanston from Boate: — 



"In this island of Hibernia, which is passing fertile beyond measure 

 oltra modo eferiilissitnd), 'tis said there is a water, in the which if a man 

 putteth wood, the part thereof that sticketh i' the earth becometh in time 

 iron, and that that is rounded with water becometh stone, and that that 

 is above water remaineth wood .... and they that desire to be 

 made copious of these and other marvellous matters let them read in 

 Albertus Magnus." 



Albertus Magnus flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, 

 more than fifty years after Giraldus Cambrensis had written his "Topo- 

 graphy of Ireland," and one would naturally expect to find that the fable 

 had reached the Continent through Giraldus. But the petrifactive virtues 

 of Lough Neagh are not amongst his Irish marvels, though he mentions 

 a spring in the north of Ulster which by its excessive coldness turns wood 

 into stone, after seven years' immersion. Perhaps Mr. Swanton, having 

 so fully explored the archaeology of this subject, could point us out the 

 source whence Albertus drew his knowledge of what we may call the 

 ferrifactive properties of Lough Neagh water. — N. Coi^GAN, Dublin. 



