252 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



At the beginning of each psalm there is a large initial letter, followed 

 often by a second letter of the same or nearly the same size, not elaborate in 

 design, and of little artistic merit.' The majority of these initials appear to 

 have been adorned with pigments of various colours. Sixty-live of them 

 remain, and of these eighteen have traces of colour in the body of the letter, 

 while the outlines are marked with red dots, in the manner usual in Irish 

 manuscripts;^ twenty-four havered dots, apparently without other colour ;' 

 and two have traces of colour without dots.' It is remarkable that such 

 signs of ornament still e.Kist, for tliough the manuscripts of St. Columba, 

 like those of other Irish saints, are reported to have been immune from 

 injury by water,^ it was liardly to be expected that their illuminations should 

 have been proof against Sir William Betham's blotting-paper. They are in 

 fact so faint that we do not wonder that they escaped the vigilance of 

 Dr. Reeves.* Some at least of the initials were drawn, at any rate in 

 outline, simultaneously with the writing of the rest of the text ; for in 

 one case some letters of the text are in the middle of the initial 0, and in 

 another the word et is written to the left of the shaft of the initial QJ 

 The colouring and dots were probably added later. 



Above the first or second word of each psalm there is a dot enclosed in a 

 circle (0). Once (Ps. xxxii. 21) there is a similar mark, together with a 

 cross, above a word. These marks seem to have been added by a more i-ecent 

 hand. 



The rubrics are in tlie hand of the scribe of the test. More must be said 

 about them hereafter. But it may be noted here that they appear to have 

 been added, after the completion of the text, in spaces left to receive them. 

 This was a usual procedure. That it was followed in the Cathach is made 

 probable by the fact that the I'ubrics do not always fit the spaces. Sometimes 

 they are spread out so as to fill a larger space than was necessary ; sometimes 

 the writing is closely crowded, and occasionally it overruns the allotted space, 

 the last words being wiitten in the margin of the text. In one instance 



' lu one case an aninial's head forms part of the design (f. 48) ; in three cases crosses 

 are introduced into the initial (tf. 6, 48, 50'). See Westwood, " Pal. Sac," Irish Bibl. 

 Mss., PI. ii, tig. 8. 



- Pss. xliii, xlv, xlvi. xlviii, 1, hi, ]vii(Oi Ixiii, Ixix, Ixx, lxxi(!), Ixxii, Ixxv, Ixxvi, 

 Ixxviii, Ixxix, Ixxxi, c. 



^ Pss. xxxvi, xxxvii, Iv, Iviii, Ix, Ixii, Ixxiii, Ixxiv, Ixxx, Ixxxii-lxxxv, Ixxxvii, 

 xciii, xciv, xcvi-xcviii, xcvi, ci-civ. 



^ Pss. liii, Ixxvii. 



^ Adamnan, ii, 9. 



^ See his " Adamnan," p. 319, where he refers to " the total absence of decoration " 

 in the manuscript. 



^ Pss. xlvi, Isxxiii. 



