MEMOIR OF THE LATE ROBERT BALL, LL. D. 
13 
conclusive. I saw a woman salting gurnard with the heads on, while 
cod and other fish with edible heads were decapitated, and the heads 
cast away. I endeavoured to show her how she was wasting a large 
portion of salt in preserving what was useless: she replied, 1 we always 
leaves the heads on gurnits;’ and this she repeated so often as to make 
it seem hopeless that she would not continue the old practice. Having 
passed the Zostera, we continued dredging; caught sundry Crustacea, and 
got a few shells and Algae, hut nothing rare. 
“We landed on Straw Island, where we found the Matthiola in great 
profusion. It is the parent of the stock gillyflower of the gardens; it 
is all purple, and possesses much more odour, I think, than the ‘ tame’ 
plants. We found here the eggs of the tern (Sterna hirundo), and I 
shot the beautiful Hcematopus ostralegus , or oyster-opening plover. 
“ The Dean got at the cottage a curious little article that is some¬ 
times hung about the necks of children, particularly, we learned, in the 
county Clare; it is called a plough-tackle, and consists of a ring of iron, 
having little trinkets, shaped like the various parts of a plough, of the 
same metal, on it. We saw a hooker, which had come from Connemara, 
leaving the island, being unable to find a purchaser for its cargo of turf 
at ten shillings, though the article is a chief necessary. The people 
seemed in great apprehension of an inroad from the starving people of 
Clare, who threatened an invasion, not to take away the potatoes gratis, 
hut by force, paying one pound a barrel; showing a curious mixture of 
justice and robbery: justice, as a pound was more than fair value; 
robbery, as force was concerned. 
“Leaving this island, we now reached the middle one; it being 
late, we , hurried along, but saw several interesting matters : three 
druidical altars, consisting of a large flag, supported by two others; 
these stood on fields of flagstones, within a short distance of each other. 
It is strange that three islands so very near each other should seem to 
have been inhabited by people who have left such marks of their having 
been distinct races, as the buildings evince. We observed here, as in¬ 
deed all through, the extraordinary love the people seemed to bear to 
the 0’Flaherty. 
“We saw on the island the Astragalus and Adiantum, and on the 
shore the Trochus crassus. It was here last year I found Baugise, a purple 
Alga, growing both in fresh and salt water. We were much delighted 
with a rich display of luminous creatures, of a species I never saw before. 
It was about 11 o’clock p. m., and they appeared around us in vast profu¬ 
sion ; but when I let down my dredge into the Zostera it was really 
splendid: a mass of light quite illuminated the space under the boat. 
Individually the creatures were best likened to spangles of silver, the 
hole in the centre and slit representing the little worm, and the flattened 
disc its luminosity. I brought up abundance of them in the dredge, but 
they were too frail and minute for preservation, and I had no micro¬ 
scope to examine them with. 
“ On getting up this morning I found a levee in attendance, having 
coins, &c., for the Dean, and birds’ eggs, Echini, and rocks, for me. The 
