INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



observing. This, to a philosophic mind, appears more criminal 

 when the observer is placed in a situation circumscribed in 

 extent, without any of those drawbacks met with in pursuing 

 science upon the area of a continent. And for the same 

 reasons so much more additional honour is attached to those 

 classes in England and Scotland, who, acquainted with the 

 natural productions of their country, value opportunities un- 

 heedingly neglected in our own. 



It is not in our province to write a dissertation upon the sub- 

 ject ; but it must be a matter of regret that, with the excep- 

 tion of an honoured few, the light emanating from natural 

 history has not as yet dawned in Ireland. Many are these 

 neglected opportunities, which are found amid the gray, mist- 

 clad summits of our mountain ranges, where the silence is 

 alone broken by the " kleeking" of the golden eagle, or the 

 inspiriting challenging of the grouse. Along the towering pre- 

 cipices of the west, Europe's first barrier against the fury of 

 the Atlantic ; tenanted during summer by myriads of sea- 

 fowl, whose confused cries alone equal the frothing of the 

 waves, rushing half-way up each cliff; localities where the 

 sea eagle sails past as if in wonder at our intrusion, and where 

 the raven topping the pinnacle of the rock stands stately as 

 if on the mast of some old Norse viking. But we have yet 

 fair plains inland, where the skylark seems untiring in its 

 melody ; where far below at the brookside the heron wades 

 watchful and silent, his course marked with the air bubbles 

 floating downwards upon the stream ; whilst on some moss- 

 grown cairn the cuckoo sways itself, uttering the joyous call 

 that some few days before had sounded gleefully under the 

 acacias of a more favoured land. Again, we have great rivers 

 rolling to the sea, whose only argosies are the wild fowl con- 

 gregated in thousands upon their surface. All are there ! the 

 stately and snow-white hooper ; thebernacle crowded together 

 in a countless multitude ; the long strings of the various ducks 

 b 



