210 Alexander Goodman More. [i869 



The weather towards the end of May turned harsh, and 

 the silkworms in the open air suffered considerably from 

 this cause ; but still they prospered better than those 

 which, for purposes of comparison, had been kept under a 

 frame. Of these last, all but three out of a total of fifty-six 

 died before July i4th, by which date most of those reared 

 in the open, both at Killarney and in the Botanic Garden, 

 were still alive, and seemed to be thriving. But now, 

 one by one, they began to drop off. In August those at 

 Killarney were dying rapidly, only two living to produce 

 cocoons, which both perished before reaching the pupa 

 state ; while at Glasnevin a solitary silkworm spun a 

 cocoon, only to die, like the two at Killarney, without 

 completing its change. 



So ended the experiments of the Royal Dublin So- 

 ciety with Bombyx yama-mai. The silkworms fed in the 

 open air had to some extent justified the trial given 

 them, by making a better fight for their existence than 

 those kept under frames. Nevertheless, the net result was 

 to practically abolish all hope of converting Ireland into 

 a silk-producing country. 



While attending to the silkworms at Killarney, Mr. More 

 found a wished-for opportunity of studying that rare and 

 little-known mollusc Limnsea involuta. This water-snail 

 is peculiar not only to Ireland, but (so far as is known) to 

 a single Irish lake, Lough Crincaum, which lies 800 feet 

 above sea-level on Cromaglaun mountain. Its discovery 

 in 1832 had been one of the most notable early zoological 

 exploits of W. H. Harvey. " Tis a lovely little shell," 

 Harvey then wrote of it with natural pride: and though 

 thirty-six years had since elapsed, it was still as " a lovely 

 little shell" that Limnsea involuta was principally known. 

 The lonely little mountain lake beyond whose limits it 

 declined to travel was sufficiently remote from the ordinary 

 route even of systematic collectors ; and though, from time 

 to time, conchologists did visit Lough Crincaum for the 

 sake of adding this rare shell to the contents of their 

 cabinets, the animal which inhabits the shell had, in its 

 living state, remained totally unstudied. As a not unna- 

 tural consequence, it had come to be erroneously classified 



