82 
The Irish Naturalist. 
April, 
But it was in Ireland that the tastes which were to 
dominate his hfe found their most important stimulus. 
As early as 1886 we find him in active correspondence 
with A. G. More, to whose ever helpful influence he always 
admitted that he owed more than to any other source in the 
guidance of his youthful studies. The environment of his 
Wexford home had also a great effect on him. His interest 
was quickly aroused by the discovery that black rats 
were not uncommon about Kilmanock. Naturally enough 
(until set right on the subject by More) he supposed them 
to be the "Old English Black Rats" — late survivors of 
a species regarded as on the point of extinction. His first 
note to the Zoologist^ — like More's own, which recorded a 
supposed "Fire-crested Wren " 2 — ^^^^s therefore based 
on a mistaken identification. But from that time onward 
we may date his special attention to the subject of 
Thompson's Mus hibernicus, which had occupied a strangely 
ambiguous position for the fifty years that had elapsed 
since it was first introduced to notice. A few years later, 
in collaboration with W. Eagle Clarke, he produced the 
important paper3 which proved the " Irish Black Rat" of 
Thompson to be a melanistic variation — somewhat more 
common in the S.E. of Ireland than elsewhere — of the 
common Mus decumanus. One can only guess how far 
the black rats of Kilmanock contributed towards the 
concentration of his interest in later years on the Mammals 
in general, and the Muridae in particular. 
But we are anticipating. He was still a Harrow school- 
boy, whose investigations into Irish natural history had 
to be limited to the time allowed by school vacations. 
With A. G. More as his director and referee, he devoted 
these chiefly to explorations after plants, tracing with 
special zeal the range of Cochlearia anglica, which was 
found to be unexpectedly prevalent in the estuaries of the 
Suir and Slaney. He soon had materials for several papers 
on the flora of his neighbourhood, in which he was ably 
assisted by his friend and neighbour, Miss Louisa S. 
^ Zool. 1887, p. 426. ^ ZooL, 1849, p. 2526. Zool., 1891, p. I. 
