252 
The Irish Naturalist* 
November, 
NOTES. 
BOTANY. 
"The Scientific Tourist through Ireland." 
There is a book called " The Scientific Tourist through Ireland, by an 
Irish Gentleman" ; plates, 1818. It has various topographical plant lists, 
and it is not mentioned in last edition of Cybele Hibernica. 
RiCHD. M. BaRRINGTON 
Fassaroe, Bray. 
A copy of this little book — a small octavo of some 200 pages, with seven 
pretty full-page engravings — has been lent me by my friend, Mr. R. M. 
Barrington, who appears to be the first amongst latter-daj' Irish botanists 
to draw attention to its county plant lists. The book has certainly 
escaped my notice, and so far as I can discover it has been overlooked 
by the authors of the first edition of Cybele Hibernica^ as well as by Mr. 
Praeger in his Irish Topographical Botany. Mr. Barrington has only dipped 
into the book himself, and believing that many readers of this Journal 
will be curious to learn what this early-eighteenth century Irish gentle- 
man may have to say about Irish natural history, has given me carte 
blajtche in the matter of criticism. 
The full title of the book runs thus : — ** The Scientific Tourist through 
Ireland : by which the Traveller is directed to the Principal objects of 
Antiquity, Art, Science, and the Picturesque ; arranged by counties, to 
which is added an Introduction to the study of the Antiquities of 
Ireland, &c. — By an Irish Gentleman, aided by the Communications of 
several Friends. London : printed for T. Booth, Duke Street, t8i8." 
From the date of publication one would expect to find embodied in the 
book the fruit of the researches of Wade and Mackay, whose Plantae 
Rariores and Catalogue of Rare Plants appeared many years earlier in the 
Transactions of the Dublin Society. But the Irish Gentleman, who 
modestly withholds his name, knows nothing of these moderns, and 
draws all his botanical lore from such seasoned authorities as Keogh, 
Threlkeld, and Smith. The Statistical Surveys of the Dublin Society 
are laid Tinder contribution for the plant lists of some of the counties, 
and nothing in the shape of an original record is to be found anywhere 
in the book, unless the following deserve to be so classed : — ** Co. Antrim. 
Rhinanthtis, Yellow Rattle ; on dry soils : Dactyhis glomerata^ Cock's-foot 
Grass; meadows near Lisburn — Co. Londonderry. Leontodon-Taraxacum, 
Dandelion ; in pastures: Achillea Millefolium, Yarrow; in pastures on the 
banks of the Fahan." Our northern botanists have no doubt verified 
all of these records ; but I cannot say that I have been able to do as much 
for the following Co. Dublin record: — Euphorbia hyberna, knotty-rooted 
Spurge ; on mountainous districts.'' The botany of Mayo is dismissed 
with the perfectly true statement that it requires a scientific explorer," 
