196 



The Irish Naturalist, 



November, 



calls on his time have made him a busy man. The vigour 

 with which he addressed himself to an immense variety of 

 pursuits, along with the proficiency which he seemed to 

 attain in all alike, was amazing. Looking back on one 

 aspect of the life of those years, he was able to say in 1888 

 {ZooL, xii., 367) " For nearly twenty years I have been 

 visiting out-of-the-way islands on our western and southern 

 coast, from North Rona to St. Kilda, and then southward 

 to the Skelligs and Blaskets, not merely fl^nng visits, but 

 living on them for days and weeks at a time in the height of 

 the breeding season. I have scarcely missed a year." 



It was during these years that he carried out (always 

 in company with some brother botanist) the explorations 

 on Irish islands, lake-shores, and mountains the results of 

 which appear in his papers on the plants of Tory Island 

 (1879), the Blaskets (1881), shores of Lough Erne (1884), 

 Ben Bulben range (1885), and shores of Lough Ree (1888), 

 while ornithological notes were gathered with equal zeal 

 on innumerable islands ; the breeding haunts of the Gannet, 

 in particular, being to him always of special interest. Time 

 had been found within the same period for visits to Iceland 

 (1881), St. Kilda (1883), the Rocky Mountains (1884), and 

 North Rona (1886) — the expedition to Shetland was made 

 later, in 1890 — and two visits to Switzerland (1876 and 1882) 

 had given him a reputation among Alpine climbers that is 

 probably in some respects still unsurpassed. Following the 

 footsteps of his brother, Charles, who had been the first to 

 ascend that mountain, he successfully climbed the Eiger in 

 1876, and in the stormy and unpropitious summer of 1882 he 

 achieved the feat of ascending within eleven days (July 26 

 to August 5) the Schreckhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Jungfrau, 

 and Matterhorn, with an equal number of high passes, 

 making in all a record of 84,500 feet within that brief period. 

 Scarcely less remarkable was his walk across the Rocky 

 Mountains two years later with the Rev. H. Swanzy. In 

 his visit to St. Kilda he was unlucky in not obtaining — 

 despite continuous efforts — a specimen of the Wren of that 

 island, described as a new species a year afterwards by 

 Dixon and Seebohm ; but it seems, nevertheless, to have 



