43? [P''°^' ^' ^' ^' ^'* 



factor in destroying many species. Reference was next made 

 to a list of Irish animals given in the writings of St, Augustine, 

 as rendered by Dean Reeves in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Irish Academy. The species there enumerated are noxious 

 animals, but one in particular, whose name literally translated 

 would mean " one and a half flier," can only be guessed at ; 

 the speaker considered it to be probably a large voracious bat 

 or vampire. 



The introduction of domestic animals was also noted as a 

 powerful agent in exterminating species, and instanced the 

 destructive work done in some of the Pacific Islands by the 

 pig and the goat, strangers to those sunny climes. 



The subsidence of land in later geological times has also 

 played an important part in this work, and Ireland was noted 

 as a good example of this. The speaker then went on to relate 

 the discovery of bones in the gravels of the Curran at Larne. 

 These bones were undoubtedly of whales, but they appeared 

 to be of a species now inhabiting the Antartic Ocean — a fact 

 which opened up a wide field for conjecture and investigation. 

 The bones of an extinct ox were also referred to, and the 

 remains of a still larger animal found when making the road 

 which at present runs between the Sallagh Braes and the 

 Headless Cross. It is to be much regretted that these latter 

 remains fell into bad hands, and that the good intentions of 

 the contractor to preserve the skull, which measured twenty- 

 two inches long by eighteen broad, were frustrated by its being 

 stolen. 



The speaker specially directed attention to this find, as the 

 locality in which it occurred was only a mile or so, as the crow 

 flies, from the place where the mammoth's tooth in his posses- 

 sion, and which has caused such discussion, was found. Speak- 

 ing of the mammoth in Ireland, the Rev. Canon stated that the 

 late Dr. Leith Adams, who at one time strenuously maintained 

 that no satisfactory proof had been brought forward to estab- 

 lish the mammoth in the list of Irish extinct animals, was com- 

 pelled to admit it on this discovery being brought under his 

 notice. It has been clearly established as Irish by specimens 



