126 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Allan should receive especial attention, inhospitable even as 
it, is. 
Mr. Kane remarks:—‘‘ The woodlands of Killarney and 
Powerscourt have yielded surprising results to Mr. Birchall and 
others; we may therefore reasonably hope for numerous fresh 
discoveries in like districts elsewhere in Ireland.” This is a very 
reasonable remark, when we can enumerate on the fingers of our 
two hands the names of those entomologists who have seriously 
worked the Irish localities. The writer of the report says :—‘“‘It 
seems regrettable that no society exists in this university city 
(Dublin) which would gather together lovers of Natural History 
who could record their researches, and through its members 
diffuse throughout the country an interest in these humanising 
studies.” It does indeed seem extraordinary that the educated 
people of such a large city should take so little interest in the 
study of Nature, when few cities possess such facilities as Dublin 
enjoys. Half an hour’s walk from any part of the city places the 
student at once in the midst of some of the finest collecting 
grounds in the United Kingdom; while half an hour's railway ride 
from the city in several directions gives the entomologist choice 
of some of the most varied geological formations, and conse- 
quent varied flora, and hence variety in insect-life. Taking for 
instance Howth, with its limestone formations and the adjoining 
sandhills, at Sutton and Malahide. Again, the Kingstown line 
takes us to the entirely different formation of Bray Head, which 
is of granite. A trip on the South Western Railway shortly 
places us in the centre of collecting grounds, to all appearance as 
suitable to the desires of an entomologist as the fens of Norfolk 
and Cambridge. 
The writer of the report goes on to discuss the result of mild 
or severe winters upon the development of insect-life; but as his 
views have recently appeared in these pages, we need not further 
refer to them. He then proceeds to deal with some of the 
localities in which he has collected, referring specially to Favour 
Royal, the seat of the Rey. J. J. Moubray, on the border of Co. 
Tyrone, which he describes as a stretch of woodland of some 
220 acres, with a tract of 180 acres of wild land sparsely timbered 
with oak, birch, and alder, and now used as a deer forest. 
Further describing them he says:—‘ These thickets, invested 
with the glamour of a hoar antiquity, are supposed still to be 
