1882] Correspondence with Mr. T. H. Carry. 299 



for plants, so we should not miss much. I shall also go next season, I 

 think, as well. I hope your health has much improved since the 

 spring. Stewart is getting on fairly with Rathlin, from what I hear. 

 I am glad to hear that you are meditating a second edition of the 

 "Cybele," as it will be a splendid thing for us all. Professor 

 Babington has given me the post of Assistant Curator in the 

 Herbarium here lately. . . . Pardon me for bothering you with 

 questions just now, but I wish to make my visit as profitable 

 botanically as possible. 



In a later letter (of September nth) Mr. Corry wrote 

 him an account of this first year's exploration of Ben 

 Bulben, the full report of which he did not live to make. 

 On such explorers Mr. More was now entirely dependent 

 for his materials for the contemplated new Cybele, but such 

 was the confidence universally felt in his critical sagacity 

 that to further this work to the utmost was among the 

 highest ambitions of all Irish botanists. All thought they 

 were receiving more help than they gave. And un- 

 doubtedly it was largely due to him that very few actual 

 errors found their way into reports or papers on Irish 

 botany for a period of over twenty years. He almost 

 invariably saw either the draft or the proof, and on the 

 least suspicion of an erroneous identification would beg to 

 be shown a specimen of the plant before it appeared in 

 print. " Far better sacrifice your best species than print 

 what may be a blunder," was his constant advice, and 

 many a plant has been erased on the strength of it. 



Debarred from field-work, he nevertheless made a dis- 

 covery this year, which enriched Irish zoology with a new 

 species of Shark. Walking through William-street on the 

 25th of September (the anniversary of Dr. Carte's death), 

 he saw in a fishmonger's shop an unusual-looking delicacy 

 exposed for sale, which on inspection proved to be a spe- 

 cimen of the Spinous Shark (Echinorhinus spinosus). It 

 had been captured off Skerries, to the north of Dublin. 

 This shark had never before, so far as was known, been taken 

 in Irish waters, nor was it again met with till, in June, 

 1885, a specimen turned up on the West coast, and caused 

 considerable commotion among the inhabitants of Gal- 

 way. The following account, headed "A Sea Monster," 



