36 Proceedings of the Rot/al Irish Academy. 



Oianuioie, kfudly seut me in the same luonlh, March, 1917, three other drift 

 seeds — two of Entada, and one of the larger Mucima {M. altissima ?), which 

 had formed part of a collection of curios made by an old man li\ ing by the 

 seashore in tiiat neighbourhood. These seeds, she had little doubt, were found 

 stranded there. From the Mayo coast 1 had received in February of the same 

 year, from my friend Miss Amy Warren (a keen student of the Marine 

 MoUusca of the district), another A)ean of Entada found stranded on the shore 

 of Bartra Lsland, Killala Bay, about the year 1890. More interesting still 

 was Miss Warren's positive identiticatiou as a constituent of the drift found 

 by her on tlie Bartra strand of the cliaracteristic fruit of Saccoglottis amazonica, 

 a native of the Amazon and Orinoco estuaries. Unfortunately, she had not 

 preserved specimens ; but, on showing her the excellent photographic repm- 

 duction of the fruit given in the frontispiece of Dr. Uuppy's "Plants, Seeds, 

 and Currents," she at once recognized it. 



In July of tlie same year Mr. H. Kichards of Barnagh, Belmullet, Co. Mayo, 

 sent me another Entada l>ean from the shore of the Mullet, where he told me 

 the bean was at times cast up in considerable numbers. He added that some 

 of the old people there lielieve tlie Sea Nuts to be good for the liver when 

 ground up and Iwilcd. Professor.]. Mangan kindly sent me for inspection 

 still another Entada bean, deposited in the Museum of University College, 

 Galway, by the Kev. William Allman, M.D., who appears to have found it 

 on the iMjach near Horn Head, Donegal, many years ago. And finally, to 

 conclude the long series of records and reports referring to this conspicuous 

 tropical sea-waif, Mr. T. J. Westropp, President of the Royal Society of 

 Antiquaries of Ireland, wrote to tell me that he had heard of nuts of a rich, 

 reddish-chestnut colour being washed up on the beach at Dunbeg, Co. Clare, 

 some time before 1875, the description here pointing evidently to the Entada 

 liean ; while Mr. E. W. L. Holt, the present Chief Inspector of Irish Fisheries, 

 informed me that he had similar beans, making part of a collection of alleged 

 antiquities bought by him from an old women at Tawin, Galway Bay, where 

 they had probably been found on the shore. A correspondence with Mr. W. 

 K. Hart of Kildeny, Lough Foyle, like my i)revious correspondence wilh the 

 IJev. W. S. Green, brought me keen disappointment, as his letters assuring 

 me that Sea Beans of three different kinds were found on the shores of 

 Donegal, Derr)', and Antrim, added that specimens which he had kept in the 

 house at one time had vani.shed " into the limbo of some spring cleaning." 



The naming of the various specimens received from correspondents was 

 much facilitated by the set of West Indian drift seeds presented to our 

 National Museum by Dr. Guppy in 1915, when he endeavoured, without 

 success, to arouse Irish interest in this subject. Though not included in this 



