1868] A New Irish Fish. 205 



Shannies in the rock-pools, . . . Xantho rivulosa and X. 

 florida, and Blennius Montagui, new to Ireland.'' 



This last was the best disovery of the expedition. 

 " Montagu's Blenny (Blennius galerita, as he would have 

 called it had books been accessible at Dingle) is a fish 

 whose only previous records on the British coast were from 

 Devonshire and Cornwall, and whose capture in Dingle 

 Bay thus " illustrates the great analogy between the south- 

 west of England and the west of Ireland, whose flora as 

 well as fauna are very similar." The next day an attempt 

 was made at open-sea dredging. " Sailed out to the 

 Blasquet Islands and dredged to the southward of the 

 Great B. From the head-wind, did not reach our ground 

 till 4.30 o'clock. First tried the sandy bottom. Shelly 

 sand, in about twenty-five fathoms. The dredge brought 

 up very little. Two or three Spatangus purpureus, a few 

 Hermit Crabs, a few shells living, but most of them dead, 

 a very fine Pectunculus glycymeris, some tunicaries coated 

 with sand, and shells. Tried next the dredge with canvas; 

 it came up full of shelly sand, but no animals at all. Then 

 had two hauls on the foul or rocky ground. Both times 

 the dredge fouled, and we broke the grapnel. On the 

 second trial the large dredge having been caught by a 

 rock came up quite ripped open across both sides of the 

 bag, and only contained a small piece of ' coral/ J 



This ended the dredging. Next to Montagu's Blenny, 

 perhaps the best prize was a rare shrimp, Hippolyte viridis, 

 new to the Irish Crustacean list. A climb up Brandon, 

 on Thursday, August 6th, afforded the two naturalists 

 the sight of a curious optical phenomenon : 



Standing on the ridge above the eastern precipice, all the white 

 mist had gathered below us to leeward and was packed in the gulf 

 beneath, while it was quite clear on the western side. The sun was 

 then shining brightly (about 5.30 or 6 o'clock) and threw our shadows 

 on to the mist beneath, where they appeared not as figures but as 

 haloes or parhelia, consisting of three rainbows within each other, and 

 surrounding the apex of an indistinct pyramidal form. On whirling my 

 stick around it was clearly seen, and as we moved the same haloes kept 

 following, and when we stood close together still each saw only one 

 (his own) rainbow. 



