14 



these being reckoned among our rarest forms. We may 

 enumerate Alsine verna, Melampyrum sylvaticum, Myosotis 

 repens, Gymnadenia conopsea, and many others of less note. 

 Many other localities hastily examined produced their quota to 

 interest ; and on the whole it may be asserted that no more 

 profitable route could have been selected to interest and instruct 

 those who take an interest in the botany of our native country. 

 In making arrangements for the coming year, the Committee 

 have included this excursion again, and they hope that a good 

 number of the members will endeavour to attend it. 



The Society's Third Excursion for the year took place on 

 Saturday, 21st July, when about twenty-five members visited 

 Shane's Castle. Leaving by the Northern Counties' Railway for 

 Randalstown, and entering the demesne by the Randalstown 

 gate, the party walked through to Antrim, exploring by the 

 way the very many interesting features which contribute to 

 make this one of the most beautiful localities in the North of 

 Ireland. The flora of the park is for the same compass one of 

 the most varied to be found within many miles of Belfast ; 

 and the botanical visitor, no matter how far he has travelled, 

 need not be apprehensive of coming away from it with an 

 empty vasculum. Its ancient groves, although interspersed 

 with some exotics introduced in later times, include many 

 noble specimens of our native forest trees. Amongst these 

 some fine old oaks well worthy of admiration, throwing out 

 their trunks of vast dimensions, and their massive branches in 

 every form, aptly typifying that sturdy independence of 

 character of which Britons boast as theirs in a special degree. 

 And while surveying these princes of the vegetable kingdom, 

 it was impossible to pass unnoticed the many elegant native 

 wild flowers that spring up at their base. In the great plan 

 of creation there is nothing thrown away — no waste of force or 

 of material ; and accordingly we find the interspaces of the forest 

 filled up with undershrubs and perennial or annual herbs, and 

 even vacancies left by these affording habitats for moss, lichens, 

 and fungus. The sylvan species were, of course, well repre- 



