laio-iaiH. | I I C 



are inhabitants of temperate climates. Nearly five hundred 

 species of Woodlice have been described, and of these thirty-five 

 are included in the fauna of the British Islands, of which twenty- 

 seven have been found in Ireland. 



Mr. Foster, by means of a series of lantern slides, showed 

 the main parts of a typical Woodlouse, and pointed out the dis- 

 tinctive characters which are used in diagnosing the common 

 species. 



At the conclusion of the paper, the Chairman called on Mr. 

 R. J. Welch, M.R.I. A., to read his paper entitled "The History of 

 the Rosapenna Sandhills." Mr. Welch, in the course of his paper, 

 said : — looking at a map of Sheephaven, north-west Donegal, it 

 would be found deeply indented with many little bays, each with its 

 stretch of sand usually between two promontories, hence the name 

 of one of these, Tranarossan — the strand of the little promontories. 

 In addition to these there is a great strand, Tramore, running for 

 miles between the cliffs of Muslac, Rosapenna, and the head of 

 Sheephaven, near Doe Castle. This strand is backed by a fine 

 range of sandhills differing in several respects from those more 

 familiar ones such as Newcastle or Portstewart. While these latter 

 strands and sandhills, and indeed all others on the east coasts of 

 Ireland or Great Britain, were of siliceous material formed from 

 the waste of old rocks such as granite, sandstone, basalt, &c, and 

 largely from glacial sands and gravels, the Tranmore dunes are 

 calcareous in character. With a low-power microscope or indeed 

 a good hand lens these sands will be seen to be largely composed 

 of very finely comminuted shells and the tests of Sea Urchins, 

 with their spines. Mixed with this material there are also large 

 quantities of Foraminifera, with some Ostracoda, and in the more 

 inland dunes a proportion of broken-up Land-Shells and shells 

 of the Edible Mussel, Mytilus edulis. They get finer and finer, 

 with a larger proportion of Foraminifera and finely-comminuted 

 spines of Urchins as one travels north towards Rosapenna. The 

 botany, too, is different, only Bent at the south end, with other 



