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III. 



OX THE OCCURRENCE OF TROriCAL DRIFT SPEEDS OX THE 

 IRISH ATLAXTIC COASTS. 



By XATHAXIEL COLGAN. 



(Plate X.) 



[Read February 10. Published SEpiiiMiiER 29, 1919.] 



I'owAUDS the end of October, 1916, my attention having been drawn to the 

 discovery of a tropical bean, the seed of Entada scandcns, on the shore of 

 Galway Bay, near Inveran, I was induced to mal^e inquiry into the present 

 state of our knowledge of Irish oceanic drift. It very soon appeared that 

 the stranding of strange seeds on the sea beaches from Donegal to Kerry 

 was a fact quite familiar to the dwellers by our Atlantic coasts. These 

 stranded seeds were known as Sea-Beans. They appeared usually after a 

 spell of westerly or south-westerly winds, and were generally supposed to be 

 wafted to our shores by the Gulf Stream. But no specimens were forth- 

 coming; and the accounts given of the nature of the seeds, and of the 

 precise tiiiie of their discovery, were disappointingly vague. A diligent 

 search, moreover, through a large body of Irish topographical literature was 

 so unfruitful of any definite result as to convince me that the field of 

 inquiry was untrodden, and might well repay exploration. The search was 

 accordingly continued ; but before I had gone much further I learned that 

 Dr. H. B. Guppy, well known for his researches into the insular floras of the 

 Pacific, and into plant distribution in general, had in the press, and almost 

 ready for publication, an exhaustive work on " Plants, Seeds, and Currents 

 in the West Indies and the Azores."^ Tiie scope of this work, I had reason 

 to believe, would embrace a full discussion of the oceanic drift of the shores 

 of Europe, inclusive of the Irish western seaboard, so that any further 

 investigation on my part would probably be unnecessary. On writing to 

 Dr. Guppy, however, he assured me that tlie field was still open, as his 



1 London : Williams and Norgafce, 1917. 



B.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXXV, SECT. C. [_E] 



