CuLOAN — Tropical Drift Seeds on Irish Atlantic Coasts. 31 



England, many other very rare beans which are said to be found in great 

 l^lenty on the shores of Cornwall, and, what is no less wonderful, no one 

 renienibereth of any vessel being cast ashore in that quarter, nor of the 

 happening of any shipwreck there, and yet year by year they find fresh 

 beans, some floating, others of them digged up from where Hiey lay buried 

 in the sands by the shore, as if they had been drifted from the New World 

 by favouring southerly or westerly winds, as is the faith of the Cornish folk 

 that dwell by the English sea."^ 



No description or plate of these New World beans is given by Lobel ; 

 but there can be little doubt that Ihey were the large bean-shaped seeds of 

 Entada scandeiis, which are slill cast up on the Cornish and Devonshire 

 coasts, and are the most conspicuous and most frequently occurring of all the 

 drift seeds found on European shores. 



In the "Philosophical Transactions" of September 26th, 1675, the British 

 drift seeds make their next appearance in literature in a paper entitled 

 " Some Observations made in Scotland by that Ingenious Knight, Sir George 

 Mackenzie." In the coui-se of these observations the writer remarks : — 



" 'Tis very ordinary to find Molucco Beans on the shoar of the Lewes or 

 other of our Western Isles. They are found fast to the stalks which the 

 Common People supposed to be Sea-Tangles, and laughed at me when I said 

 they were Land-Beans, which made me to write to the Earl of Seafort whilst 

 he lived in the Lewes, that I supposed these apparent tangles were the ham- 

 of the Beans, whicli by long lying in the sea might acquire the likeness. His 

 Lordship examined the matter, and found it so, and he likewise sent to nie a 

 piece of a cabbage-tree that was found on that shoar. It is observable that 

 the kernel of these Nuts will be fresh and sound, and the people make boxes 

 for snuff of the Bean-husk." 



Here again it is evident that the beans spoken of are the seeds of Entada 

 scandens. These were frequently made into snuff-boxes in Scotland ; and 

 now that snuff-taking has fallen out of fashion, are made into silver-mounted 



' I am iudebted for this interesting reference to the kindness of Dr. B. Daydon 

 Jackson, our leading authority on the literature of botany. The Catherine Killigrew 

 mentioned liere was a learned lady, proficient, it is said, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, 

 and wife of Sir Henry Killigrew, returned member of Parliament for Launceston in 1552, 

 and afterwards employed by Elizabeth in many diplomatic missions. See Appendix .\ 

 for original text. 



-Provincial for the " haulra " or stalk of certain plants, such as potatoes, peas, or 

 beans. "Tater hams" and '" pease hams" are used in Gloucester dialect. 



[K*1 



