1889-90.] 219 ^ 



southern extremity the ground becomes lower. The greater 

 part of the surface consists of rocky heath, with frequent marshes 

 and lakes* The flora and fauna of an area thus isolated might, 

 he said, be expected to possess interest for the naturalist, and in 

 this respect Rathlin has claimed a fair amount of attention from 

 local scientists. At the beginning of the present century, Mr. 

 John Templeton examined the flora of the island ; in 1836 Dr. 

 David Moore paid it a visit ; and in the following year an 

 elaborate paper dealing with the zoology, botany, and geology, 

 as well as with the scenery, history, agriculture, and statistics 

 of the island, appears in the Transactions of the Royal Irish 

 Academy, from the pen of Dr. James Drummond Marshall. 

 Miss Gage, sister of the courteous and kindly owner of Rathlin, 

 prepared a list of its flora for the Botanical Society of Edinburgh 

 in 1850, and Mr. Gage himself has for many years made the 

 birds of his little kingdom his especial study. In 1884, Mr. S. 

 A. Stewart, a leading member of the Naturalists' Field Club, 

 contributed a most valuable paper to the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Irish Academy, in which the flora of the l?land is fully 

 and accurately described. Mr. Praeger next touched on the 

 scenery of the island, with special reference to the magnificent 

 sea cliffs, which form such a conspicuous feature. It is at the 

 north-west extremity that these cliffs attain their greatest 

 elevation, and there the huge wall, from 300 to 450 feet in 

 height, rises sheer out of the water, carved by the ocean into 

 vast amphitheatres and bold headlands, with occasional detached 

 rock-pillars of great height standing in fantastic shapes, like 

 giant sentinels guarding that savage coast. Amid these craggy 

 fastnesses the seabirds have their home, and hither as spring 

 advances come thousands of guillemots, razorbills, puffins, 

 kittiwakes, and black-backed gulls, to bring forth their young 

 on the lofty ledges of the cliffs. The kestrels yell from the 

 adjoining rocks ; the hooded crow and chough flit along the 

 shore ; cormorants sit motionless by the water's edge ; an 

 occasional raven soars majestically around the topmost crags. 

 In the marshes above coot, waterhen, and dabchick push their 



