A Shower of Palm-nuts. 193 



one at least of the authors. Glad to shake the dust of the 

 herbaria off his feet, he hurried away to Wales to join his 

 family, who were passing the summer at Bangor, and 

 enjoyed a real holiday. In September, returning to Ire- 

 land, he went with his sister for his first visit to the Lakes 

 of Killarney. Only a week this time was spent in that 

 beautiful district, but the impression made on him was 

 such that of the next eighteen summers there were only 

 three during which he did not visit the Irish lake-lands. 

 The best bit of botany accomplished on this occasion was 

 the discovery in the Lower Lake of Callitriche autumnalis 

 (autumnal water starwort), a full degree further south than 

 what had been supposed its southernmost station in the 

 British Isles. 



A renewal of bird-correspondence for he had again 

 begun firing off letters at his old contributors, and was 

 now begging for information as to seasonal increase or 

 decrease of " resident " species interested him during the 

 next few months in Dublin. Here he now felt himself 

 thoroughly at home, and the reputation which he enjoyed 

 in the scientific circles was already based less on his writ- 

 ings than on the results of personal acquaintance. A little 

 incident of this period was often quietly laughed over in 

 later times. It was at a dinner-party, at which a number 

 of naturalists and other men of science were present. The 

 conversation turned upon an extraordinary phenomenon 

 which had occurred, or been generally noticed, on the 

 afternoon of that very day. It was nothing else than the 

 descent, from the upper regions of the atmosphere, of a 

 shower of thousands of palm-nuts upon the streets of Dublin. 

 At least, the streets, after rain, had been discovered to be 

 strewn with the " nuts," some of which, it was said, had 

 even been seen in the act of descending, either from the 

 sky, or at any rate from the house-tops. They were hard, 

 so hard that a knife could not pierce them, further, at 

 least, than to pare off a slender chip. The meteorological 

 conditions of the higher strata had evidently produced a 

 petrifying effect. To what exact species of palm the nuts 

 belonged had not been ascertained, but that a West Indian 

 tornado had snatched them up into the clouds, which had 



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