Vou. V.] DECEMBER, 1881. 
THE ZOOLOGIST. 
| THIRD SERIES. 
[No. 60. 
THE ANNALS OF IRISH ZOOLOGY. 
By vHe Epiror. 
(Concluded from p. 445.) 
In the year 1744 a number of gentlemen in Iveland formed a 
society, known as ‘‘ The Physico-Historical Society,” with the 
object of investigating the Natural and Civil History of the 
several counties of Ireland, and raised funds by subscription 
“to employ ‘proper persons to travel through the kingdom, to 
make observations and collect proper materials for the purpose.” 
The labours of this Society began to bear immediate fruits: in 
the same year appeared ‘The Ancient and Present State of the 
County of Down,’ which, though bearing no author’s name on 
the title-page, is usually attributed to Walter Harris; and this 
was followed, in 1746, by the ‘Ancient and Present State of the 
County and City of Waterford,’ by Dr. Charles Smith, who, in 
1750 and 1756, published two similar works relating to the 
Counties of Cork and Kerry. Of that on Kerry, Macaulay wrote, 
“T do not know that I have ever met with a better book of the 
kind and of the size” (Hist. Eng. iii. p. 136), and all three of 
Dr. Smith’s works were reprinted with additions in 1774. They 
have now become scarce and valuable. 
To refer briefly to the first volume of the series, Harris’s 
‘County of Down,’ there is an account therein (p. 146) worth 
perusal of the pearl fishery which used to be carried on formerly 
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