MEMOIR OF THE LATE ROBERT BALL, LL. D. 
15 
Icevis, purchased a pair of pomputies and more choughs. We took leave 
of our friends, and, mounted on the backs of stout natives, were em¬ 
barked on board our boat, never, perhaps, again to visit Arran.” 
This was not the case. In 1840 its productions were again ex¬ 
plored by a party of naturalists, of which Ball himself was one. 
They had a prosperous voyage to Galway of five and a half hours. 
While there they crossed the river to look at the weirs. “ Seeing some 
fine trout in the pond, of various kinds, I determined on getting them, 
and succeeded in procuring three, the largest weighing 9 lbs. I sent 
them off by the coach, with orders to H. B. to show them to Thomp¬ 
son, for Yarrell’s work; or, if I were not in Dublin, to pickle the 
heads.” 
“We stayed up for a gentleman who was to have produced sundry 
curiosities ; he did not come, and I employed myself in writing four 
letters. I was there at work until long after 2 o’clock, packing up 
my treasures to send them by the mail to Dublin, was up again a little 
after 3 o’clock; and having got a howl of milk with a little whiskey, we 
started for Connemara.” 
They arrived at Minn’s half-way house. 
i( While fresh horses and car were preparing, we chatted with his 
daughters, two tall and, strange to say, elegant-looking girls, with beau¬ 
tiful figures, never deformed by the cruel foolery of stays, or corsets, or 
cinctures. The one was knitting real Connemara stockings, while the 
other, barefooted, was spinning the material for them. Their hair was 
pot up with great taste, precisely after the fashion of Canova’s Yenus, 
and their graceful movements and gentle manners were in strict ac¬ 
cordance. Yet they were only peasant girls in the very centre of Con¬ 
nemara. The only fault I found in them was one in which they re¬ 
sembled fine ladies: it was the abhorrence expressed in their countenances 
when I seized a magnificent specimen of a nomade spider, which dropped 
from the smoked roof of their cabin. They expressed their feelings in 
Irish, and I caught the word Prumpillaun* and said, ‘ Here are some,’ 
producing a box of beetles. They were certain that I had consequently 
understood all they said, aod seemed in dire confusion.” 
“ We stopped at an ancient hill fort, and having made out the 
covered way which led into it, endeavoured to open it from the top. 
After considerable labour, we failed in making a practicable breach; 
and a number of country boys having assembled around us, we deter¬ 
mined on astonishing the natives.. I was dressed in my white cloak 
and cap, and with sundry gesticulations cast into the hole three Prome¬ 
thean matches, which I ignited by biting with my teeth. I then 
contrived to slip in father’s musical watch, and we had a tune from the 
bowels of the earth. After certain mysterious allusions we walked off 
in silent dignity, leaving the spectators looking on with the strongest 
expressions of wonder in their countenances !” 
A black beetle. 
