i48 The zoologist. 



the pseudonymn " A Naturalist," he would have received long before his 

 death due acknowledgment of its merits. The book to which we refer is 

 1 A Discourse on the Emigration of British Birds ; or, this question at last 

 solv'd : whence come the Stork and the Turtle, the Crane and the Swallow, 

 when they know and observe the appointed time of their coming ? Con- 

 taining a curious, particular, and circumstantial account of the respective 

 retreats of all those Birds of Passage which visit our Island at the com- 

 mencement of spring and depart at the approach of winter, &c, &c.' This 

 book, first printed in 1780, went into a second edition the same year, and 

 was reprinted in 1795, and again in 1814 with a new title-page, when for 

 the first time the name "George Edwards" was substituted for "A 

 Naturalist." This, as Mr. A. C. Smith has shown, was only a rash guess 

 on the part of the publisher, and a very mistaken guess. The real author's 

 address, " Market Lavington, Wilts," being printed at the end of the Intro- 

 duction, gave a clue to his identity, and, following this up, Mr. A. C. Smith 

 has established the fact that the writer was John Legg, who (as appears by 

 a marble tablet erected to his memory in the chancel of Market Lavington 

 Church) was " the son of Richard and Jane Legg of this town," and " de- 

 parted this life April 5th, 1802, aged 47." Further biographical details are 

 given in the memoir now before us. Those of our readers who possess 

 editions of the ' Discourse,' either with or without the name of George 

 Edwards on the title, will be interested in this discovery of its real 

 authorship, 



MAMMALIA. 



Irish Names for British Animals. — In the list of names for the 

 Mole given by Prof. H. A. Strong (p. 11), I was surprised to find Irish names 

 for an animal not known to exist in Ireland, namely, caochdn (the blind 

 creature), criadh-luch (the earth mouse), and luch dall (the blind mouse). It 

 seems to me that to whatever animal these may refer they cannot be applied 

 to one which is not a native of Ireland. I would suggest that they may 

 have been given to the Long-tailed Field Mouse, and to the Lesser Shrew, 

 with its diminutive eyes ; the first and third named to the Shrew, the second 

 to the Field Mouse. — Robert Warren (Moyview, Ballina, Co. Mayo). 



[This argument is fallacious, as may be seen if we consider the number 

 of species to which English names have been applied in various parts of the 

 world, and yet none of which are indigenous to England. Moreover, the 

 Mole is by no means an isolated instance as regards Ireland; for example, 

 there is no evidence, historical or geological, that the Roebuck was ever a 

 native of Ireland, and yet there is an Irish name for it, Earbog, which 

 it may be observed closely resembles the modern Gaelic Earb, Earba, 

 and Earb-boc (' Essays on Sport and Natural History,' pp. 52 — 55). 

 The pheasant, pheasan, is mentioned in an Irish MS. poem of the ninth 

 century as having been brought from the neighbourhood of Loch Melvine, 



