PROTECTIVE COLORATIOlSr IN THE HOUSE-MOTJSE. 471 



liopes to have the island surveyed thoroughly before publishing 

 his paper. I estimate its present length at about 2| miles. 



The 1843 edition of the Six-inch Ordnance map figures the 

 North Bull as a bank one mile and fifty chains long, the main / 

 island being only seventy-five chains long and separated by a 

 patch of sand, covered at high water, from several small islands 

 entered as " Islands in Eaheny Parish." These were known as 

 the " Bull Calves." The tidal channel is now dry, and supports 

 the usual sand-loving plants that characterize the rest of the 

 island, the smaller islands having united with the larger one. 



The islands are figured similarly in the 1838-1868 sailing chart. 

 In 1839 Beaumont, in his " Seport upon a Design for the 

 Improvement and Deepening of Dublin Harbour," speaks of the 

 "Young Bull Calves" forming seaward of the old one. 



ISrimmo, in his 1823 map, figures a " sand-bank " one mile and 

 thirty chains long, which is probably the island. He gives no 

 details. 



In Taylor's two maps, 1816 and 1819, the island is figured 

 about ^ mile long according to the scale. 



Dawson's map, 1809, is a small map in which the island is 



figured as a small oval patch of land a little under i mile long. 



The disagreement between these early records perhaps speaks 



more for the inaccuracy of the maps than for the variability in 



relation of land and sea. 



In 1805, in the "Eeport on the Improvements of Dublin 

 Harbour by the Directors G-eneral of Inland Navigation " (Tidal 

 Harbours Commission), there occurs the statement, " Since the 

 building of the South Pier [about 1790] .... a considerable strip 

 of the North Bull remains dry at high-water, and has on it a 

 growth of marine plants." 



The first map that figures this island is Cowans, 1800, where 

 it is delineated as a small dry area on the submerged sand-bank. 

 Bligh's map, of the same date (in "Warburton's ' History of the 

 City of Dublin,' 1818), figures it as a quarter of a mile long. In 

 the Dublin Harbour Improvement Commission (1800-1801), a 

 letter is published from Eichard Broughton to William Gregory, 

 dated from the Ballast Office. Broughton refers to "the 

 dry part of the North Bull ; " and further on he says : " The 

 North Bull has increased very much both in extent and in height 

 during the progress of the works on the South side, and more 

 especially since their completion." (This refers to the building 



34* 



