THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DONEGAL. 161 
as every tide washes in very perfect specimens of many of the 
deep-sea species, while the rock-pools are brilliant with Clado- 
phore, Chylodadie and Polysiphonia, and an abundance of Codium 
tomentosum and Laurencia pinnatifida. The economic uses of 
the Algz, described as useless by old Virgil, is well illustrated here 
in early summer. In May the old frond of Laminaria digitata 
becomes constricted, and is pushed off by the new frond, and the 
first storm drives in masses of this weed, forming often a bank four 
or five feet in depth: the natives call it “Scie weagh,” meaning 
the May fleece, and the scene when it is coming in is an animated 
one. In one bay seventy carts may be counted, the horses up to 
the girths in the sea, and the natives forking up the precious crop. 
In the Faunett district, which has a coast of six miles, 8500 tons 
are secured, which, when dried, produces about 400 tons. From 
the beginning of August till the end of September is another busy 
time, when the “harvest weed” comes ashore: it consists of the 
variety stenophylla of Laminaria digitata, which is quite entitled 
to be ranked as a species, as it sheds not only its frond, but also 
a portion of the stipes, and its structure and chemical constitution 
are entirely different. Leaving the shore and going further west, 
one is struck by the abundance of the royal fern, which, instead of 
being the nearly extirpated rarity it is in the Clyde Valley, is here 
a common weed, growing in clumps like a little forest: it is dis- 
liked by the farmers, and, along with rushes and mosses, are all to 
be banished by drainage, ‘‘ when the times mend.” Ferns are not 
so specifically numerous as in Scotland. 
In Marine Zoology there is much to interest and delight the 
student. At a short distance from the shore the boat glides over 
a stretch of Laminarie-covered bottoms, where the large Eclimus 
sphere may be seen prowling over the brown seaweed in the 
society of numerous star-fishes, shoals of Meduse, and the beautiful 
zoophyte, Cydippe pileus, while multitudes of dogfish sport along 
the surface. The estuarine shores of Lough Swilly yield numerous 
species of Mollusca, while at Fort Stewart the whole littoral zone 
is covered with the shells of Anomia ephippium and Pecten striatus, 
and thousands of the valves of the oyster recall the days when 
that succulent bivalve could be bought here for threepence per 
hundred. 
As for Mammalia, the Otter is too frequent. The Squirrel, 
Ferret, Fox, Weasel, Bat, and Hedgehog are often to be seen, and 
