HAKTE ON FERNS IN CO. DONEGAL. 247 



The amendment, having been put from the Chair, was declared 

 carried. 



The Meeting then adjourned. 



FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 7, 1865. 



The Rev. S. Hatjghton, M.D., F. T.C., President, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding meeting having been read and con- 

 firmed, 



Mr. R. P. "Williams presented, as a donation from Mr. Isaac Peyton 

 Warren, of Rathangan, a Specimen of the spotted Craik (Crex por- 

 %ana), which had been shot at Baldoyle some few years ago. This is 

 a rare bird, of which, however, there is a specimen already in the 

 collection of the Society. 



The thanks of the Society were unanimously voted to the donor of 

 the foregoing. 



Dr. Arthur "Wynne Foot read a paper on the " Morbus pediculosus. " 



The following paper was afterwards read : — 



On the Occurrence and Geological Relations op certain Ferns, 

 in the County oe Donegal. By W. Harte, C. E., F.R. G.S.I. 



In a paper by the late Professor Kinahan, M. D.,* upon the Dis- 

 tribution of Ferns in Ireland, he observes, " I have not had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining far north ; my researches not being pressed farther 

 north than Tyrone." This is much to be regretted; but, without 

 proposing now to supply this unfortunate defect, or to give a list of all 

 the Ferns common here, the following remarks upon the local distribu- 

 tion of certain Ferns in the county of Donegal, by one " far north," 

 may perhaps be of some interest. 



Without entering into a detailed description of the geology of Do- 

 negal, I should state that it consists of the primary and metamorphic 

 rocks, with a comparatively small patch of the Old Red Sandstone and 

 Carboniferous systems round the Bay of Donegal, and again at Bel- 

 leek, Carrowkeel, and Muff, on Lough Foyle. The rain-fall and me- 

 teorological conditions of the county are seriously affected by the more 

 central and higher ridge, which, at some distance inland, runs more 

 or less parallel to the west shore, and which, by stopping the clouds 

 in their progress eastward, leaves the catchment of the west coast much 

 more humid than that of the inland and eastern portion of the county. 



* " Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Dublin," vol. i., p. 93. 



