786 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



throughout the United Kingdom the most barren of entomological re- 

 sults that has occurred for many years. 



The preceding winter having been exceptionally mild, while the 

 summer of 1880 (which proved exceedingly prolific of Lepidoptera) 

 succeeded an intensely cold winter, furnished a problem for Naturalists 

 which attracted considerable attention. A careful analysis of reports 

 and observations from various parts of Great Britain, coupled with my 

 own experience, has led me to the conclusion that the scarcity has 

 been most marked in such species as have arborivorous larvse, and (in 

 certain exposed localities) among those whose food-plant, though low- 

 growing, is fragile, and easily destroyed by wind. I, therefore, con- 

 clude that the storms of the summer and autumn of 1881 must have 

 shaken many tree-feeding larvae from their food, and in certain situa- 

 tions destroyed the foliage of many herbaceous plants, especially on 

 the sea-coast. The mild winter, no doubt, was a factor in the problem, 

 for in such weather slugs, woodlice, and beetles, are more active in 

 their ravages upon such pupse as are not protected by a stout cocoon, 

 or deeply buried beneath the soil ; while on the other hand neither 

 ova nor pupae have their vitality at all affected by intense frost. 

 My researches were commenced in March last at Favour Royal, the 

 seat of the Eev. J. J. Moutray. This demesne, situate on the border 

 of the county Tyrone, was formerly part of a thick covert of oak, 

 birch, ash, alder, and elm, of some four or five miles in length, which 

 is marked as a wood in some maps of the 17th century. Its original 

 extent can be pretty clearly traced in the designations of the town- 

 lands about, some thirty of which commence with the prefix of 

 " Derry," or " Killy." Of this stretch of woodland, to which, doubt- 

 less, the old Irish air •' ' The green woods of Truagh " refers, portions con- 

 sisting of about 220 acres are still preserved in the demesne of Favour 

 Eoyal and the contiguous woods of Grallagh, Creaghan, and Lismore ; 

 while the Deer-park encloses about 180 acres of wild land, sparcely tim- 

 bered with oak, birch, and alder. The oak and ash now standing of 

 these woods are saplings sprung from stools of trees felled a century 

 or more ago, while birch and alder spring up thickly in every clear- 

 ing ; and holly, hazle, and blackthorn furnish a dense undergrowth 

 throughout. 



These thickets, invested with the glamour of a hoar antiquity, are 

 supposed still to be the haunt of the " Loghrie-man " or "Lepre- 

 chaun," whose wizened face peering out from a mossy stump is said 

 sometimes to startle the lonely scollop-cutter as he bends to his task 

 in the gloom of the wood ; and also of an unseen sprite, whose atten- 

 dant foot-fall, stirring the dead leaves in the autumn gloaming, is wont 

 to mock his homeward steps. About a mile and a-half away is a wild 

 glen called Altadiawol, often referred to by Carleton in his Traits 

 and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. This glen runs up into the spurs 

 of the Slieve Beagh hills, and is clothed with thick scrub, while birch, 

 oak, ash, and alder, straggle up the slopes, and hang from the precipi- 

 tous heights on either hand. 



