xin 



25. = North Tipperary, Kings, West Meath, Longford. 



26. = West Galway, West Mayo. 



27. = East Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Rosoommon. 



28. = Fermanagh, Cavan, Monaghan, Tyrone, Armagh. 



29. = Donegal. 



30. = Down, Antrim, Derry. 



In collecting Lichens it is requisite to be furnished with a 

 geological hammer and iron chisels of good temper, to detach thin 

 pieces from the rocks, with the lichens growing thereon, and also 

 with a strong, sharp olasp-knife, or strong oyster-knife, to cut or 

 prize off lichens from the bark of trees or from old palings, &c, 

 and a pocket lens. All that is necessary to preserve such speci- 

 mens is immediately to fold them in soft paper, to prevent injury 

 from rubbing against each other in carriage home. They require 

 no drying or pressure, and are always in a condition proper for 

 examination. Generally speaking, it will be advisable to collect 

 specimens in dry weather. Rain is apt to swell up the parts of 

 lichens so much as to render them rather difficult to be distin- 

 guished from each other in their native localities, and specimens 

 gathered in wet weather will not unfrequently be found destitute 

 of spores, which by the lateral pressure on the asci occasioned by 

 the swelling of the adjacent parts by the moisture have been 

 ejected. The practice which will be found useful is, on return 

 home, to fix the specimens on paper, with strong glue, writing the 

 locality from whence obtained, and then arranging them roughly 

 in genera. This arrangement, leading to the successive examina- 

 tion of several species, or specimens, in any particular genus, will 

 be found to facilitate, by comparison and contrast, their satisfac- 

 tory determination. 



Every lichenist is unfortunately well aware of the great difficulty 

 of preserving specimens of lichens which grow on the earth. Too 

 frequently he finds, on consulting his herbarium, that the earth 

 on which such lichens grew has become dry and crumbled into 

 dust, involving in such disintegration the destruction of the lichen 

 itself, especially when this happens to possess a crustaceous thallus. 

 To remedy this, an effective preparation has been discovered by M. J. 

 M. Norman, of Trbmso, Norway. It consists of a solution of 

 isinglass in spirits of wine, such as is used in the preparation of 

 English adhesive plaster, which a chemist informs me is better 

 known as " Prout's Plaster." This composition when liquefied in 

 a vessel plunged into water of the temperature of 25 — 30° C, is 

 greedily imbibed by the earth on which the lichen grows, and be- 

 comes inspissated into a solid gelatine, at a temperature below 15°. 

 The solution may be applied by a camel's-hair pencil until the 

 earth becomes saturated, but care should be taken that the lichen 

 itself be not moistened with it, for otherwise it would become dis- 

 coloured. When the surface has become dry, the specimen may 

 be submitted to moderate pressure, which, after some days, pror 

 duces the requisite hardness and tenacity. 



