PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
O 
information on the subject. It is one which is interesting to Philology and To¬ 
pography, as well as to Zoology. I have obtained in my examination many 
proofs of this, and have also found that names of animals exist in some of the 
ancient manuscripts which we cannot now translate; and names of species 
appear which have altogether disappeared from the country, and others of ani¬ 
mals which we have been led to believe were of recent introduction; the gray 
rat, for instance, is mentioned with the black rat in a poem written in the 7th 
century. 
It is also very desirable to collect the local vulgar names of animals. It seems 
somewhat remarkable that within much of the English pale, we find birds, &c., 
called by Irish names, while in the more Irish parts of the country English 
names, sometimes incorrectly applied, are in common use. Records of such facts 
are very well worth preserving. 
EXTINCT MAMMALIA. 
The attention of members of the Association may be usefully directed to the ob¬ 
servation of mammalian remains found in bogs. When the head and horns of a 
giant deer are found they attract the attention of the neighbourhood; while nobody 
appears to observe the hornless skulls found in the same locality. Thus for many 
years it was supposed that the females of the species had horns; now we know 
that these deer followed the same law as their present representative, the fallow 
deer. 
The existence of bears was denied; but it has recently been proved that they 
were contemporaries of the giant deer. We have proofs of wolves and foxes, of a 
remarkable race of short-horned cattle, various goats, horses, and deer; but we 
have no proof of the existence of the celebrated wolf-dog, nor of the beaver, by the 
production of any of the osseous remains. May I suggest to members to examine 
carefully any discoveries of bones they may chance to be cognizant of, for the desi¬ 
derata I have referred to, or for any other species than those I have enumerated 
as already well known. It may be well here to urge that in any examination of 
the deposit where bones are found, accurate observations should be made as to 
whether the ground has before been turned up by man. I have reason to believe 
that much crude theory has been the result of want of care in this respect; for, so 
far as I have been able to trace the occurrence of the bones of giant deer in con¬ 
nection with human remains, they appear to have been thrown up in the making 
of trenches round the fortified islets so common in our country; thus, it would be 
as correct to consider the last thrown-up shovel full of clay from a trench at Sebas¬ 
topol as coeval with the military weapons it perhaps covered, as to imagine that 
an elk’s horn thrown from the marl at the bottom of a dyke was contemporary with 
the implements of the recently constructed island fort which it helped to form. 
SUPPOSED DIFFICULTY OF FINDING SUBJECTS FOR STUDY. 
Persons are not unfrequently heard to complain that they are so. circumstanced 
that they have no opportunity to pursue any study in zoology: there is no person 
really so circumstanced. The prisoner in his dungeon studied, to advantage, the 
natural history of a solitary spider. I know a lady who made a collection of 200 
species of insects on the windows of her drawing-room in this city. I recollect, 
when sitting on an old ivv-clad gate pier on a hill over the sea, a resident gentle¬ 
man said to me, he should like to know something of the land and fresh-water 
mollusks, but that there were none in that region. I replied there are, and several 
species, too, on the structure on which we are sitting. I proceeded to examine, and 
found no fewer than eight living species ; while in a bog, just close at hand, were 
four or five more. I could enumerate many other cases, proving that where there 
is a student of zoology, there are always subjects of study. 
• UNNECESSARY DESTRUCTION OF SPECIES. 
I would venture to urge on the members of the Association that they should 
consider themselves the protectors of animal life. Associations for the protection 
of game are common ; why should not naturalists unite to prevent the annihilation 
of rare species, many of which are useful, not a few ornamental, and none more 
mischievous than foxes, hares, and pheasants. Waterton protected all animals 
