THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



219 



tion bedims the perennial flow. Always pellucid, always cheerfully 

 babbling over the enamelled stones, an emblem of purity and ceaseless 

 beneficial activity, it is always attractive and suggestive of subjects for 

 meditation. Nor was the parent pool without its own peculiar charm 

 and interest for a student of natural history. The miniature lake 

 extends half round a small but thick wood, through which the observer 

 may creep and, himself unseen, watch the proceedings of the aquatic 

 birds which frequent the pool and find safety amid the thick encircling 

 fringe of reeds. The wild duck and teal sailing about with their young 

 broods, coots and dabchick diving sometimes for sport and sometimes 

 for food, herons in stately watch, could be seen, and many others, 

 provided the spectator would remain perfectly quiet. In the evening 

 many birds' notes could be distinguished by their song, chief amongst 

 them being the spinning-wheel hum of the night jar and the sweet 

 note of the black cap. This swampy ground of which the pool and 

 the stream are the centres forms a happy valley swarming with 

 vital activities of all kinds, a symphony in which lime is the motive. 

 Plants in their superabundance of fecundity lend themselves to the 

 growth of insect populations — the trout and eels grow fat on the plenty 

 of luscious water snails and become more delicate fare for the heron, 

 and so on and so on. The chain may be long, but the links are closely 

 united, and the commencement may be found in the issue of under- 

 ground waters from calcareous strata. 



THE HORSES GLEN. 



Immediately beneath the crest of Mangerton and to the west is a 

 tarn, which I have mentioned previously, called the Punch Bowl. It is 

 separated by a very narrow ridge from a very deep and narrow glen, 

 the sight of which from the ridge cannot fail to evoke feelings of 

 amazement and even of awe. The descent from your feet is not 

 absolutely precipitous, but exceedingly difficult and dangerous, whilst 

 the sides of the glen, and especially the south, present bare, rocky walls 

 about 1,500 feet high, which seem, if not vertically steep, to afford no 

 possible foothold for the climber. On the floor of the glen may be seen 

 two small lakes. 



This is the Horses Glen, which is considered by some critics to be the 

 most striking natural phenomenon in the whole district of Killarney, and 

 which doubtless does affect the mind the most if not the most pleasantly. 

 I hesitate to quote it as a stupendous instance of long continued denuda- 

 tion, because it has always seemed to me that such a deep gash in the 

 mountain side must have had other causes than the wear and tear of 

 atmospheric disintegration. For we find that this glen, as well as some 

 of the country adjoining, has been subject to the influence of volcanic 

 eruption — either whilst still submarine, or when it was slowly rising 



