68 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



have such a strange and universal fascination for the Irish 

 peasant. 



The central parts of Ireland are occupied by a great table- 

 land of secondary limestone, round the margins of which the 

 mountainous regions are placed : at the point of juncture 

 between the plain and the mountains there are depressions 

 in n)any cases filled by lakes: thus Lough Corrib separates 

 the plains of Mayo and Galway from the moinitains of Con- 

 nemara ; and the Lakes of Killarney, the flat country of Cork 

 and Limerick from the Kerry mountains. Lough Corrib is 

 about twenty miles in length, with a width varying from one 

 mile to ten : it is surrounded on all sides by rocks, which 

 extend under it, but the hollow in which it lies does not 

 appear to have been caused by any disturbance of the strata, 

 as in some cases peculiar beds of rock are traceable across 

 it, and are found at the same level on the opposite sides : it 

 was not worn out by running water, the surface of the lake 

 being only twenty feet above the sea-level, whilst in some 

 parts the lake exceeds one hundred and fifty feet in depth ; 

 neither was it corroded out by the chemical action of the 

 water, as the deeper portions are excavated in the granite 

 rock, and the part underlaid by limestone, on which the water 

 would act more readily, is mostly very shallow. It is oiie of 

 those rock basins which geologists are generally agreed have 

 been ploughed out by moving ice, and apparently owes its 

 origin to glaciers which descended from the Connemara 

 mountains. 



From Lough Corrib westward to the Atlantic a wide valley 

 extends for fifty miles, occupied by a chain of lakes ; on the 

 south are elevated moorlands; on the north the great moun- 

 tain masses of Bennabeola, or the " Twelve Pins," some of 

 them glittering pyramids of quartz rock 2300 feet in height. 

 The shores of the lakes are mostly rocky and barren, without 

 tree or bush, although there is nothing in the soil or climate 

 to prevent the growth of limber; the woods which formerly 

 clothed the country have, 1 believe, been cut down by the 

 peasantry for fiiel, l)ut the islands in the lakes which were 

 not accessible are still covered with luxuriant vegetation. 

 Ne^ar Kylemore Lake the country is better wooded, and there 

 is also a comfortable inn, much resorted to by anglers; and 

 what little information I possess respecting the insect fauna 



