388 THE zooLoGist. 
of the year migrates northwards, would be more likely to grow 
with rapidity in an aquarium, living in luxury, having no occasion 
to employ much muscular exertion, enjoying a comparatively 
equable climate, and guarded from its foes, than would be the 
case were it a resident of the Irish Sea. This I would suggest 
explains how it occurred that such different results were arrived 
at by two equally accurate observers working in separate localities 
wherein the conditions of fish-life were totally diverse. 
A GERMAN VIEW OF THE FAUNA OF IRELAND. 
By Ernst FRIEDEL. 
(Concluded from p. 353.) 
III. Tue Coast. 
The Lakes of Killarney and the tour by Macgillycuddy’s 
Reeks to the Island of Valentia (famous as the first European 
starting-point of the transatlantic cable) offer to the travelling 
naturalist many an interesting glimpse of Irish animal-life along 
the south-west coast. At Killarney the lively imagination of the 
Irishman sees in the Islands (curiously shaped and twisted by 
erosion) all kinds of animal forms, which are then connected with 
the legendary hero-king, O’Donaghue— O’Donaghue’s horse, his 
hen, his cow, &c. One island in the largest lake, Lough Leane, 
is called Rabbit Island, from its rabbits; another, on which, 
according to the guide, white mice may be found (!), goes by the 
name of Mouse Island. ‘The profusion of plant-life which 
surrounds Lough Leane is astonishing; conspicuous amongst 
the flora is the great furze, Ulex-europeus, which grows like a 
tree along the shore, forming perfect forests. The lakes are rich 
in fish, including numbers of Salmon and ‘Trout, and permission 
to fish may be obtained for a small sum. But here again we 
must remember O’Donaghue; suddenly through the warm spring 
or summer night he rises from the waters, and the hoof of his 
white charger tramples the still lake into raging billows. Thus 
we find the Celts, like Germans, comparing the white-crested 
waves to the fluttering mane of a noble charger.* 
* The more prosaic Frisians call the play of the waves “ the calves-dance,”— 
meaning by “calves” the seals and do!phins. 
