226 M‘Sweeny, on the Climate of Ireland. 
It may be said that it would be dangerous to cross the sea, in such craft at present. 
He qualified the description by the words “ navigant autem.” 
Boate gives a passage from Giraldus on the Trish sea, but he does not give his mean- 
ing correctly in the translation—‘ Hibernicum mare, concurrentibus fluctibus undo- 
sissimum fere semper est, inquietum ita, ut vix etiam aestivo tempore, paucis diebus se 
navigantibus tranquillum prcebeat.” 
Boate translates this passage thus—‘‘ The Irishsea being very boisterous through ° 
the concourse of the waves, is almost always restless, so as even in the summer time, 
it is hardly for a few days quiet enough to be sailed on.” 
Surely this is not the meaning of Cambrensis. His meaning in this passage is, that 
scarcely in the summer time, is it calm for a few days. 
A perfect calm is not a frequent occurrence at the present day in the Irish sea. 
Boate, speaking of the want of east wind to bring ships from England, to Ireland, 
obseryes—‘ But in the summer time, and chiefly in the spring, and in the months of 
March, April, and May, one is not so much subject to that incommodity, as in the 
other times of the year.” . 
Boate’s observations agree with these of Rutty. 
It would be difficult from the natural history of freland, at least during the histo- 
rical period, to prove a change of climate; wolves have been exterminated, the em- 
ployment of guns has tended to banish birds from countries more than any change of 
climate. 
In the list of birds by Cambrensis, are to be found cygni. Smith informs us 
that wild swans were common in the north of Ireland, but were only observed in the 
south in the great frost of 1739. 
Wild swans were shot in the south of Ireland, in the winter of 1829. 
It is allowed that magpies were driven here by a storm, at a period subsequent to 
Cambrensis, but many birds might have escaped his observation. The increase of 
population, and the use of fire-arms, no doubt, banished storks. They were in Ireland 
in the reign of Henry II. ‘* We have seen,” says the Irish king Dermot, in a letter 
preservel by Cambrensis, “the storks and the swallows. ‘The birds of the spring 
have paid us their annual visit, and at the warning of the blast, have departed to 
other climes. But our best friend has hitherto disappointed our hopes. Neither the 
breezes of the summer, nor the storms of winter, have conducted him to these 
shores.” —Lingard’s History of England. 
Ireland, in ancient and modern times, is similar in being free from serpents 
Spencer described the Irish as being tormented by gnats, in the woods. Arthur 
Young says that the number of flies which devour one in a wood, prove the great hu- 
midity of Ireland.”— Young’s Tour in Ireland, Vol. II. p. 77. 
in every period of the history of the climate of Ireland, we find evidence of its 
mildness, 
