i895- FIELD-CLUB WORK IN IRELAND. 315 



For many years Belfast had to remain content with having set 

 forth an example; but in 1885 the exertions of Professor A. C. 

 Haddon in Dublin resulted in the development of a second field-club. 

 From this, considering the other societies existing in the capital, 

 archaeological subjects are wisely excluded ; and the tenth year of 

 the club's existence sees it in a sound and flourishing condition. 

 While in Belfast the professional element has of late remained almost 

 too much in the background, in Dublin the danger has lain in the 

 opposite direction, and the cordial cooperation of workers already 

 known in the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Academy no 

 doubt tended at one time to restrain the ardour of the amateur. But 

 at present the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club has a vigorous and 

 independent life, and has been fortunate in securing as its secretary 

 Mr. R. Lloyd Praeger, who acted for some years in the same capacity 

 for the older society in Belfast. The general plan of work in the 

 two clubs is similar, the winter meetings of the Dublin one being 

 held in the handsome and classic rooms of the Royal Irish Academy. 



In 1892, Mr. J. L. Copeman suggested the formation of a similar 

 club in Cork ; and Mr. F. Neale also succeeded, later in the same 

 year, in founding a fourth field-club in Limerick. 



The publication of that bright and well-printed journal, the Irish 

 Naturalist, which is now in its fourth annual volume, has provided a 

 means of communication between all the clubs, and between them and 

 many older natural history societies. The Belfast Club still issues 

 independent Proceedings of its own, but its meetings are chronicled in 

 the pages of the Irish Naturalist. The February number of this 

 journal for the present year bears striking evidence of the work that 

 is quietly going on, even during the pressure of ordinary field- 

 excursions. Mr. G. H. Carpenter, President of the Dublin Field 

 Club, there describes the " Animals found in the Mitchelstown 

 Caves," 4 on the occasion of a visit lasting two hours, during a joint 

 excursion of the three southern field-clubs. In the same number, 

 Mr. J. N. Halbert discusses the insects collected above ground during 

 the three days of this joint excursion to Fermoy and Mitchelstown ; 

 and these two papers show how scientific knowledge may be distinctly 

 promoted on such occasions, despite those serious persons who are 

 apt to look on a field-day as a sort of sanctified picnic. 



After all, and especially in a country where scientific training is 

 not easily obtained, the educational side of field-club work is at the 

 outset of paramount importance. The training of the eye in the 

 open country is the training of the whole individual, body and soul. 

 And the feeling that in every county there are observers with the 

 same aims, the same enjoyments, ready to assist, to correlate, to 

 confer, leaves no beginner to cool his enthusiasm in discouragement. 

 Already a Field-Club Union has been formed, through the agency of 



4 Irish Naturalist, vol. iv. (1895), P- 2 5- A. full account of this paper was given in 

 Natural Science for March, vol. vi., p. 148. 



