II2 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



At the conclusion of his report, Mr. Whitehouse read the 

 paper with which he opened the discussion at the above Confer- 

 ence, on the " Best means of Preventing the Extinction of Local 

 Species," on behalf of the Club. A full report of this paper will 

 be found in the British Association Report for 1913.* At the 

 conclusion of the discussion which followed Mr. Whitehouse's 

 paper a new member, Miss E. F. Stubington, was elected. 



" THE HISTORY OF IRISH WOODS AND TREES." 



At the fourth meeting of the Winter session, held in the 

 Museum, on Tuesday, 17 th February, Professor Augustine Henry, 

 M.A., F.L.S., M.R.I. A., Professor of Forestry in the Royal 

 College of Science for Ireland, read a paper on the above subject 

 before a large audience. The lecturer attended under the 

 auspices of the Irish Field Club Union, and the chair was 

 occupied by the President (Rev. Canon Lett, M.R.I. A.). 



Professor Henry, in the course of his lecture, said, the 

 history of the woods of modern Ireland began after the Ice Age. 

 He explained the occurrence of the submarine forests, found all 

 round the coast, and of the great forests in the peat, which, he 

 said, were formed in the Neolithic period, at the time when the 

 climate was drier than now. There were Pine trees, however, in 

 the great Leinster forest in 1010 a.d., which were carried to 

 Kincora on the Shannon to make masts for the ships of King 

 Brian. Firs grew, according to a note on an old map, on the 

 mountains of Down in 1570. The association of the Pine with 

 the Capercaillie in Ireland was striking, as this beautiful bird 

 gradually became extinct with the increasing rarity of the pine 

 woods. Ireland always had plains on which trees never grew, 

 like the Curragh of Kildare, Lecale in Down, and the great plain 

 of Roscommon. During the Bronze Age man began to clear the 

 forests for the cultivation of cereals and flax, and the agricultural 



* Report of the Corresponding Societies Committee and of the Conference 

 of Delegates held in Birmingham, p. 15. 



