t9i5- ScHARKF. — Irish Bird-Names on Rathlm Island, 2\% 



Snow-Bird is probably the Snow Bunting of which no 

 Irish name was hitherto known. Large flocks of this 

 species often reach Rathhn in the winter months and it 

 must be well-known to the inhabitants. The Irish term 

 le-At)*\t\ mrse is peculiar and may possibly be a corruption 

 of a more appropriate one. 



Starling. — "otAui-oe^S. 



Swallow is known in Rathlin Irish as ^\lco5 le-Afi. 

 Swan. — ev\tA pAt)xMC. 

 Titlark. — i^e^b^g. 

 Wheatear. — clo6tAAn. 



Willy Wagtail is probably apphed to the two 

 common Wagtails. The Irish word given by Bigger is 

 5l<Mfeo5 guxMl. 



Woodcock. — coille.\c coiUe. 



National Museum, Dublin. 



IRISH SOCIETIES. 



DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



October 13. — The Club met at Leinster House, the President in the 

 chair. 



D. McArdle exhibited Chantransia scotica, a rare alga which was 

 discovered in a curious way. Dr. Pethybridge sent a water -moss 

 Fontinalis squamosa to the exhibitor for determination, with a note 

 stating that a minute alga was growing on the moss, which had been 

 collected in the GlasnagoUum Brook, a tributary of the King's River, at 

 Ballinagee Bridge, 889 feet above sea level in Co. Wicklow. The locality 

 is given in full with the hope that the plant will be collected in fertile 

 condition. Mr, Takeda, who is making a special study of fresh -water 

 species, has named the alga. The plant is caespitose, attached to the 

 leaves of Fontinalis, scarcely a half -inch long, sparingly branched, branches 

 attenuated of a light steel blue colour, or more inclining to the colour 

 of C. pygmaea, joints 2-3 times as long as broad, cells i mm. in diameter. 

 Threads sparingly and shortly branched, monospores very fugaccous, 

 similar in shape and size to those of C. pygmaea, with isolated carposporcs. 

 The sexual reproduction has been fully worked out in C. covymhifera , 

 Thur. On the fertilization of the carpogonium it develops numerous 

 gonimoblasts upwardly and on one side. There is therefore formed a 

 naked corymbose cystocarp, the terminal cells of the gonimoblasts 

 producing the carpospores. The antheridia arc likewise developed in 

 clusters. A sexual reproduction occurs by tctraspores and also by 

 other spores which remain undivided and are known as monosporej? 



