Quadrupeds. 7619 



drium), maidenhair spleenwoit {Asplenium Trichomanes), and the 

 male fern {Dnjopteris Filix-mas). A few plants of the lady fern {Athy- 

 rium Filixfoemina), were just beginning to show their heads when 

 our first visit was paid. 



The access to the cave is by a steep slope, down which, at the time 

 of our visit, a tiny stream was flowing, which soon lost itself in the 

 rubbish on the floor of the cave. Having gained the bottom, the cave 

 proceeds for some distance pretty much on a level, the floor being 

 composed of a slippery tenacious clay of considerable depth ; it then 

 narrows, gradually ascends, and at length further progress is barred 

 by a high cliff", up which we did not ascend, as the cave terminates at 

 a short distance from this point. The breadth of the passage is mo- 

 derate throughout, and the roof, in parts low, becomes, near the cliflF, 

 so lofty that our candles barely sufficed to show it in an indistinct 

 gloom. I may observe that the clay in the floor of the cave was 

 bored and caverued, either by badgers or otters, the track of 

 whose feet might be plainly seen. A few stalactites of small size 

 hung in parts from the roof, and the cave was tolerably dry ; in one 

 or two places there were small pools of water, but though I searched 

 these carefully I could find no traces of the blind Acarinoe which had 

 occurred so abundantly to me in the caves of Dunmore, Co. Kilkenny, 

 in a similar situation. We had not long lighted our candles and pro- 

 ceeded into the gloom, when my companion captured a lesser horse- 

 shoe bat, hanging from a crevice in one of the side walls of the cave, 

 at a point where daylight was visible. In our progress to the end of the 

 cave we captured another specimen of the same species, hanging near 

 to the ground. When we reached the lofty chamber already spoken 

 of we found the traces of the excrement of bats very abundant, and 

 indistinctly through the gloom we could make out the forms of one or 

 two bats, seemingly of considerable size, hanging from the roof, but 

 far out of reach. During our return another specimen was found, 

 near the place where the second specimen had been captured ; and 

 after the lights were extinguished, at the very mouth of the cave, in 

 broad daylight, Mr. Foot detected a fourth. All these specimens 

 were males. The only other living thing seen in the cave was a moth 

 {T/iphosa dubitaria), which was by no means rare, and found in all 

 parts of the cave, even the darkest. 



We next proceeded to the plantations on the western shore of the 

 lake : here, in a cliff covered in profusion with ferns,— especially that 

 lovely variety of the common polypody iCienopteris vulgaris) to 

 which the names " hiberaicum," " semilacerum," " pseudo-camlui- 



