310 A Flourishing Ulster Field Club • 
In pre-war times, railways were the usual method of travel,, 
with wagonettes for short excursions round Belfast. Now, 
owing to the perfection of motor transit, many of the long 
(full day) excursions are made in motor chars-a-banc, two 
this summer in this way being most successful, the first over 
the Belfast Hills to the shores of Lough Neagh at Langford 
Lodge — the party examined, of course, for arms, ammunition 
or seditious papers at the Special Police barriers both going and 
coming home — a very formal examination only of the driver’s 
credentials in the case of the B.N.F.C., although a very 
strict personal one in the case of many other excursion parties. 
Some of the members were anxious that one of the party 
should be searched on the return journey, and informed the 
police so, as they knew he had besides two boxes of ‘ am- 
munition ’ — young cones of Cupressus — a big tin box of Limax 
Maximus var. and one of Bithynia, which would have as- 
tonished the searchers. The second journey was to the Mourne 
Mountains, right across the Co. Down. Several other ex- 
cursion parties had to pass through or very close to ‘ sniping 
areas in Belfast, on way out or home, but did not allow that 
fact to interfere with their enjoyment of a day’s collecting on 
good ground. The Society is, of course, strictly non-sectarian 
and non-political, and has members of all denominations in 
its ranks. The Belfast Natural History and Philosophical 
Society, too, has quietly continued its work, including many 
public scientific lectures ; its Archaeological Section explored, 
in war time, the ground round the Giant’s Ring Dolmen, 
(always called Cromlechs in Ireland), which stands in the 
centre of a great Lis on a hill-top, and at present has almost 
completed, at a cost of over £400, the digging out from under 
great heaps of debris, of the early Celtic monastic buildings 
of Nendrum, including the remains of the round tower and a 
number of crosses, etc. Nendrum will be fully illustrated, so 
the Editor writes in The Graphic. This monastery, on Mahee 
Island, Strangford Lough, was founded by the Celtic Abbot 
Mahee about 1450. Nendrum was a famous school, and here 
were educated St. Finian, the founder of Mo villa, and St. 
Colman, founder of Dromore. The place seems to have been 
destroyed by the Norse freebooters in or about A.D . 974. The 
remains of the Church, Round Tower and stone-lined graves 
stand inside the inner of three dry built cashels. This has been 
repaired, and it is proposed to repair most of the two outer also. 
It is the most important piece of conservation of what should 
be a national memorial that has taken place in Ulster for very 
many years. The pages of your contemporary, The Irish Nat- 
uralist, show that the naturalists of both Societies still continue 
as active as ever they were, and seem to look on the present 
troubles in Ireland as merely rendering life interesting ! 
Naturalist 
