NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 373 
and ‘Transactions’ of Scientific Societies. We ought not, 
however, to pass unnoticed the ‘Guide to Belfast’ by the 
* Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club,” published on the occasion of 
the British Association Meeting held in that city in 1874. 
The example set by a Vice-President of the Belfast Natural 
History Society is one which others equally favourably located in 
Ireland would do well to imitate, for it may be asserted with 
truth that we still know comparatively little about the fauna of 
the sister Isle. We should have learnt more had Mr. Patterson 
resided in any other part of Ireland than Belfast, the former 
home of the late William Thompson, who so thoroughly investi- 
gated the natural history of the district. In other words, it is 
almost to be regretted that Mr. Patterson, instead of going over 
the same ground, did not make choice of some other district in 
which to exercise his evidently keen powers of observations. 
Not that he has been unable to tell us anything new concerning 
the fauna of Belfast Lough, for his book contains some interesting 
original observations, but there would have been greater novelty 
in his remarks had they resulted from an investigation of any 
other part of Ireland. This is evident from the frequent reference 
which he has been compelled to make to Thompson’s well-known 
work. His book would have been stamped with more originality 
had it contained fewer extracts from the ‘ Natural History of 
Ireland, and it would have been decidedly improved by the 
omission of numerous quotations from the works of Bishop Pon- 
toppidan, the late Dr. Saxby, Mr. Lamont, Mr. Robert Gray, and 
others, which, although excellent in their way, have nothing 
whatever to do with Belfast Lough. 
Those who have never read the works so freely quoted by him 
will doubtless thank him for the extracts, but those to whom they 
are already familiar (and we suppose that this applies to most natu- 
ralists) must feel disappointed that the volume does not contain 
more from Mr. Patterson’s own pen, or less from the pens of 
other authors. 
Although intentionally discarding systematic arrangement, for 
reasons given in his Preface, Mr. Patterson has nevertheless set 
down his observations in very orderly method, and in a very 
agreeable style. 
