1550 The Zoologist — Febkuaky, IStis^. 



avoids its drearj' solitudes, and it can only be called an insect-hunting 

 ground on the " lucus a non lucendo " principle. 



Philipstown and Tullainore, the two largest towns of the King's 

 Count}-, are situated on what may be called oases in the midst of the 

 Bog, and the author of an old rhyme seems to have thought them as 

 dismal as the surrounding Bog, when he wrote — 



" Great Bog of Allen swallow down 

 That odious heap called Philipstowii ; 

 And if iby maw can swallow, more, 

 Pray take and welcome Tullamore." 



I have more than once made excursions into the Bog from these 

 cities of refuge, but with scant success, as far as Entomology is 

 concerned. Chortobius Typhon, Saturnia Carpini, Bombyx Rubi, 

 Aspilates strigillaria and Schrankia turfosalis were my usual captures, 

 and mostly abundant : the only rarities I ever met with were Dasy- 

 campa rubiginea and Xylina petrificata ; these were on ivy at Tulla- 

 more — one specimen of the former, and the latter in profusion. 

 Nature has been so liberal in her gift of peat bogs to Ireland, that 

 Irishmen may be pardoned for believing, as many of them do, that 

 they will one day prove a source of untold wealth, and many and 

 costly have been the attempts, ending in loss, to convert into coal, oil 

 or candles these vast accumulations of fuel ; but the old-fashioned peat- 

 cutter is still mostly in possession, and plies his spade the summer 

 through, piling up immense stacks of turf all along the course of the 

 canal which traverses the Bog: his cabin is usually a sort of pit under 

 a dry bank, the roof a few branches placed across and covered with 

 heath or turf, through which the smoke makes its way, and is the only 

 sign of the vicinity of a human habitation, than which surely nothing 

 more miserable can be found on the surface of the planet. Happily 

 for these poor boglrotters, their health does not suffer, as is the case 

 with persons living on the margins of morasses where vegetables are 

 decaying : a swamp abounding in rank vegetation emits noxious 

 vapours at the season when the decay of the plants takes place, but a 

 peat bog is of a different nature, being highly antiseptic, so that 

 animals and vegetables remain for ages unchanged in its depths. 

 This being the case it has surprised me to find the remains of but few 

 insects embedded in the peat : I have only been able to obtain a few 

 elytra of beetles of the genus Donacia, apparently those of still-existing 

 species. 



