656 Proceedings of tlie Royal Irish Academy. 



old surface, covered with, sand, like that of Whitepark Bay, They 

 have excavated considerable portions of this old surface during the 

 past three summers when staying at the seaside, and have obtained 

 flint implements and flakes similar to those obtained by me at White- 

 park Bay and Portstewart. Mr. B. M. Young has given an account 

 of the find to the Belfast l^atural History and Philosophical Society 

 (see Proceedings for 1892-93, p. 37). The Messrs. Young invited me 

 to see the various remains which they had procured, and I found 

 them similar to those from neighbouring sites on the coast of Ajitrim. 

 Among the bones was a human jaw, and they informed me that the 

 skeleton of a child had been found a short distance from the place 

 they excavated, but apparently on the same level as that old 

 layer. They worked on the same plan as I did myself, that is, they 

 tkrew back the overlaying sand and then dug the old surface very 

 carefully with a garden trowel. This method is found to be the most 

 suitable for excavating in the sandhills, as it enables one to find and 

 examine the smallest object of either flint or bone. 



Mr. W. H. Patterson, m.k.i.a., examined the sandhills at Eosa- 

 penna in July, 1893, and has given an account of his examination in 

 the Irish Naturalist for March, 1894. He says in many places 

 among the dunes the shell-mounds or kitchen-middens of the old 

 people are found in most places broken down by the winds and theii" 

 contents scattered and bleaching in the sand. Of the shells the most 

 numerous were the limpet and periwinkle, but there were many 

 others. He submitted them to Mr. S. A. Stewart, who named them. 

 There was among the rest, Venus verrucosa, which Mr. Stewart says 

 is a southern species, and not found as a recent shell in the north of 

 Ireland. Bones of the large animals and also of birds were common ; 

 and he found one bone ground to a sharp point. He reports the 

 finding of glass beads and bronze brooches of about the age of the 

 tenth century, and he himself found portion of a small comb, which 

 he says may not be older than the sixteenth or seventeenth century, 

 A.D. He found no pottery. 



Archdeacon Wynne reports to the " Journal of the Boyal Society 

 of Antiquaries," vol. in., 5th series, page 78, the discovery among 

 sandhills on the coast of Kerry, near Ballybunion, remains of red 

 deer of very large size, and pig, probably wild boar. He says : " The 

 next feature of the valleys, which exists in all, but in different 

 degrees, is the presence of kitchen-middens, chiefly heaps of limpet 

 shells in large quantities, in one or two cases of mussel shells . , , and 

 in most of the valleys of bones of large quadrupeds, the teeth of which 



