WILLIAMS ON THE IiOACII. 91 



collected specimens of the plant without flowers, near Portumna, twenty 

 years ago, which remained in my herbarium undetermined until 

 lately. Last year I made a second journey to Lough Derg, and redisco- 

 vered the plant, flowering very sparingly. It is a widely-distributed 

 species, although it has not before been known as a native of the Bri- 

 tish Isles. Dr. Schultz-Bipontinus remarks that it has been met with 

 over nearly the whole of Europe, with the exception of the extreme 

 northern and southern parts, and extending through Asia Minor to Persia, 

 where it seems to belong to the subalpine region, and through European 

 Russia into Siberia. Ireland may be considered the north-western limit 

 of this widely -diffused plant. 



Mr. E. P. Williams then exhibited some living Eoach, and made the 

 following remarks : — 



It is many years since I heard the statement made, that the fish so 

 commonly called in Ireland the Eoach (Zeuciscus rutilus) was in- 

 correctly named, and that the fish was really the Eudd (Leucis- 

 cus erythopMhalmus) . I took little notice of this, thinking it the common 

 error of subsequent authors, copying predecessors without assuring 

 themselves of their correctness; but, when the number of Couch's 

 " Fishes of the Carp Tribe" was published, I found it emphatically stated 

 that the Eoach did not exist in Ireland. I began to inquire if such was 

 really the case. Mr. Couch says : — " It is worthy of notice, and not 

 easily accounted for, that the former fish (the Eudd) is common in many 

 parts of Ireland, while the true Eoach is not known in that country, 

 although supposed to be so, because the Eudd has usurped the name.'.' 

 Speaking of the Eoach, he says it has not been found in Ireland. I 

 have examined all the descriptions and plates I could find, and made 

 up my mind that the assertion was a mistake. I therefore commenced 

 a collection, and obtained many specimens from different localities in 

 England and Ireland, and found that, with trivial differences of colour 

 and size of scales, they were all the same fish. I have well-marked 

 varieties from the same lake, taken at the same time. In the careful 

 examination of these I hoped to have been assisted by our former Pre- 

 sident, Mr. Andrews, probably the best authority on fishes, who has on 

 more than one occasion in this Society detected the errors of writers, 

 who made genera and species of what were really undeveloped forms, 

 or erotic change of shape and colour. Erom want of time these speci- 

 mens remain packed up in bottles of spirits until a complete analysis 

 can be made, when, probably the question may again be brought before 

 your notice. I now intrude on the Society in consequence of being able 

 to show some alive, and amongst them exhibited, for the first time in 

 Ireland, the Azurine, or Blue Eoach, for which I am indebted to my 

 friend, Mr. Thomas John Moore, Director of the Derby Museum, Li- 

 verpool. This fish is only to be found in England, in a river at Knows- 

 ley, the seat of the Earl of Derby, and, to the late Earl, Natural History 

 is indebted for the notice of it. Yarrell states, as a specific difference of 



