is laid between a couple of thwarts; on to this the contents of the dredge are poured; the dredge itself is returned to the bottom; and two pairs of hands are soon busily engaged in turning over the motley variegated heap, which writhes, and crawls, and twists, and wriggles, half on the board and half at the bottom of the boat.

And now, what have we got to reward us after our trouble? As I said just now, dredging is decidedly a capricious, not to say skittish pursuit, and the chances of a good or bad haul are hard to prognosticate beforehand. Here, for instance, in the Killary, a star-fish, known as the Thread-rayed Brittle-star (Ophiocoma filiformis), and usually accounted a rarity, is in some places so common that the dredge comes up literally choked with it at every haul, while elsewhere you may scrape and scrape for hours, yet never meet with so much as a single individual. This being one of the spots it affects, we may be pretty sure that it will form at least two-thirds of our cargo. As for its appearance, let the reader picture to himself a small pentagonal piece of leather, to which five rather long and very ravelled pieces of twine have been attached, and further, let him endow each of these pieces of twine with a separate writhing, wriggling, restless life of its own, and he will have a notion, and a fairly approximate notion, of what our star-fish is like. As to its brittleness, all I need say is that out of a dredge-load, consisting of perhaps thousands of individuals, I have sometimes failed to secure as much as a single perfect specimen since before even the dredge reaches the surface the whole mass has become mere disjecta membra of rayless disks and diskless rays. The best, indeed the only chance of securing specimens is to have a bucket of fresh water at hand, and at once drop your captures into it, the effect of the fresh water being to kill them so instantaneously as to allow no time for their breaking themselves into pieces.

But these brittle stars are not our only captures. Here, for instance, are a couple of sun-stars, as gorgeous as orange-disks, lemon-coloured bands, and an array of great red rays can make them. Smaller star-fish too; some with thin pointed rays, others like animated pieces of parchment with apparently no rays at all. Seaurchins also, and white soft satiny-looking holothuria. As for the representatives of other orders, they are quite too numerous to do more than glance at. Here are sea-mice, brown and bristly; serpula, grey and stony; hermit crabs, spider crabs, broad-claw crabs, all sorts of crabs. Fish too of various kinds. Young flat fish looking up at us with eyes which have not yet attained to the full-grown squint, but are in process of working round (or as some will have it through) from the front where originally they were, to the side where eventually they are to be; pipe-fish wriggling their way, worm-fashion, in and out the motley heap; a small sucker promptly seized upon as a prize, being only to be met with here and, it is said, on the Cornish coast; ascidians, annelids, and sea anemones; shells

of many sorts and sizes; besides whole forests of delicate branching hydroids, which by the uninitiated are invariably set down as seaweeds, but which, none the less, are animals, or rather communities of animals, all linked together, and each contributing to the benefit of the whole-a notable example truly of the merits of co-operation.

But, see! we have already passed Inishbarna, with its solitary fisherman's hut, and are out now in the open bay. Here the current is considerably stronger, and there is a good deal of broken water, so that it is as well to haul in the dredge, and get clear of the rocks before letting it down for another scrape. To our left lies the little bay or creek known as the lesser Killary; a few patches of wood, scanty, but comforting amid the general bleakness, mantling the hill-side beyond. Yet a little further to the left stands a church, half hid in ivy, and near it (invisible, however, from our present stand-point), a well—a very ancient and a very famous well, commemorating probably the precise spot where Saint Roc rested after that most memorable struggle with the Evil One which resulted, according to tradition, in the making of the pass above-the marks of the saint's shoulders and of his antagonist's hoofs being still plainly visible upon the rocks. Beyond, the eye travels along a broad white arc of silvery sand, past a couple of villages; past more bare rocks over which the surf is playing leapfrog, until it is arrested by the outstretched point of Renvyle, which for the present cuts off further view in this direction.

At this state of the tide the navigation is somewhat intricate, dark points of rock, muffled in seaweed, but none the less sharp or perilous for that, peering up in all sorts of unexpected directions. Off one of these a seal slips quietly into the water just as he calculates that we are getting within range. There are no guns in the boat, but that we could hardly expect him to know, and in any case he would think it as well probably to be on the safe side. Only two seals, the large grey (Halichorius gryphus), and the common spotted seal (Phoca vitulina), occur on this coast, and of these the former, though not rare, is seldom seen, as it prefers the most distant rocks and skerries, and even there is exceedingly difficult to approach. Both species are said to have been formerly used as food, being allowed (like sea gulls and cormorants) to pass muster as fish, and to be eaten consequently on fast day-a piece of lax observance dating as far back as the days of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of it with the utmost reprobation. If a sin, it certainly was one which to our eyes carried its own punishment along with it!

That this practice of eating seals was not confined to the Irish coasts is evident from Martin's Description of the Western Islands, published in the early part of last century. The natives,' he says, 'salt the seals with the ashes of burned sea-ware, and say they are good food. The vulgar eat them commonly in the spring-time, with a long pointed stick instead of a fork, to prevent the strong smell

which their hands would otherwise have for several hours after.' Why any one capable of so heroic a sacrifice of comfort to refinement should be called vulgar is not explained, but as far as the eating of seals goes the evidence seems clear. In the Book of Lismore, quoted by Mr. Hardiman in his notes to the Hiar Connaught, a story is told of St. Bridget which illustrates this custom:

Once on a certain time there came visitors to St. Bridget. And they were noble and devout, being the seven bishops of Tulla in the East of Leinster. Then Bridget commanded a certain man of her people to go to the sea, and fish for her visitors; and the man went forth carrying his seal-spear, and he met a seal. He struck the seal-spear into it, and tied the rope fast to his arm. The seal dragged the man after him over the sea to the shore of Britain, where it left him upon a rock, after that it had broken the rope. Nevertheless the seal returned with the spear sticking in him, until he was cast by the sea on the part of the shore nearest to Bridget: and the British men gave a curagh to the fisherman, and he came over the sea, and found his seal on the strand of Leinster, and he carried it to Bridget's visitors.

But our seals and seal-rocks are now a good way behind, and we are rapidly approaching a group of islands whose rounded wave-like outlines hardly seem to rise above the surface of the sea. This, then, is the place for another scrape. Both wind and tide are now in our favour; so, dropping the dredge overboard, we draw in the oars, and slip quietly down in the direction of the islands, the long swell following and driving us forward at the rate of a mile, or perhaps a mile and a half an hour-quite as rapid a progression as any dredger needs.

All along the edge of the islands may be seen a number of black heaps, which at this distance, but for their colour, might pass muster as haycocks. Cocks they are, not however of hay, but seaweed, collected in the spring-time, and destined eventually to be converted into either kelp or manure. A few years ago far more seaweed was collected than at present, every little point and island being thickly bedotted with its black heaps. Unfortunately, the kelp trade has of late been languishing, the prices have gone down, and there seems only too much reason to fear that a short time will see it vanish altogether.

The manufacture of kelp along these shores has in fact been marked with vicissitudes from the very commencement. Up to sixty or seventy years ago it was chiefly made of the 'black' weeds, those, namely, which grow within tide-marks, and being then largely used in the manufacture of soda, was in considerable demand, the prices ranging as high, it is said, as ten and twelve pounds a ton. Arthur Young, writing in 1778, tells us that as much as 3,000 tons were in that year exported from Galway alone. The shore,' he says, 'is let with the land against it, and is what the people pay their rents by.' The seaweed was in fact then regarded as the most valuable part of a property adjoining the coast, and the amount demanded for the right of cutting it strikes us as curiously disproportionate to the other rents paid at that time Unfortunately it was an industry solely dependent for its existence

upon the enormous duty then paid upon salt, which duty no sooner was removed than the process for extracting soda from salt came into general use, from which hour the kelp trade sank and sank until it had well-nigh vanished altogether. For many years hardly a kelpfire burnt along the shore; whole villages were reduced to the brink of starvation, and hundreds both from here and from the west of Scotland emigrated to America. At last, but not until years afterwards, a new kelp trade sprang into existence, at first feebly, gradually increasing to a considerable industry. This time the trade however was not in 'black' weed kelp but in 'red' (chiefly the different species of Laminaria); not for the production of soda but of iodine, and although the prices have never again attained to anything like what they were in former years, on the other hand this disparity is partly balanced by the fact that the cutters of the black weed had to pay high rent to the land proprietor, since the weed grows between high and low water, while the red all grows below the low water mark. Some proprietors, however, charge a small sum for the right to collect the 'claddagh' (weed driven inshore in winter-time) 'and others a royalty per ton for leave to spread and burn the kelp upon their land.' Unfortunately the fatality which overtook the original makers of kelp seems still to be pursuing their successors. Again the prices have gone down, and again the fires are beginning to be extinguished, and whether a new opening will once more arise to resuscitate the trade remains to be seen.

But the day is wearing on; our men have a good seven or eight miles to row us homeward; so, having hauled the dredge on board, and comforted our captures with a fresh supply of salt water, we put the boat about, and once more make for the entrance of the Killary. Back again, past the islands, each with its narrow jagged hem of foam; past Salrock with its church and its trees, over which the rooks are now loudly cawing; past the long green ridge which divides the two bays; in again at the narrow mouth of the Killary, where vicious-looking black reefs and murderous tooth-like points of rock gnash at us from either side. Here for a moment the surf runs high, but as we advance further and further it seems as if the smooth water came forward to meet us. The long Atlantic swell drops behind; the very breeze dies away, unable to get over the barriers to right and left. The surface, as far ahead as we can see, is broken up into a succession of lines and ripples, dividing and surrounding spaces of absolutely still water. Even the light seems diminished as we exchange the shining league-wide surface of the sea for the comparatively narrow and darkened space which is all that intervenes between the promontory on the one hand and the mountain on the other. Glancing back towards the entrance, the islands seem sleeping in the afternoon haze. Small white puffs of cloud still hang upon the

'Seaweeds of Iar Connaught.' J. H. Kinahan, Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. vi. p. 331.

summit of Mweelrea, or go floating leisurely away through space. Lower, but not seemingly so very much lower, our eyes rest upon a ledge where formerly year after year a pair of eagles built their nest and reared their young. Now, alas! it is deserted, the last eagle of the Killarys having been shot some eight or nine years ago for the crime of lamb-stealing.

Pleasant as our whole excursion is, perhaps this hour of return is the pleasantest of all. Our captures are all safely disposed at the bottom of the boat. Our dredge too is tucked securely away under the thwarts, and we are no longer to be haunted with visions of its being stuck in sandbanks, or jammed fast between inexorable rocks. The labours (such as they are), of the day are over, and the further labour of sorting and arranging our captures is still to come. We have not even the steering to think of, that science being necessarily reduced to a minimum when there is only one way, and it is impossible to go wrong. We have nothing to do but to sit at our ease and enjoy the scene; to watch the gradual unfolding of the landscape, point appearing beyond point, headland beyond headland; the long blue lane of water stretching away for miles ahead; the silent hills crowding down one before the other to the very brink. If it is the salmon season, then at every point we pass, curaghs, with their nets on board, are waiting till the fish are seen to rise. When this happens, out fly a couple from opposite directions, dropping their nets behind them as they go, and a great and mighty hubbub arises, the men splashing the enclosed space violently with their oars, and shrieking as only a Connaught man can shriek, and he only when he gets excited. Perhaps, on the whole, it is pleasanter when nothing of the sort is going on, and a few puffins and kittiwakes, or possibly a solitary heron poaching on his own account, are the only things to be seen. Then as we creep nearer and nearer to the foot of the hills the silence seems to settle. A gleam caught from some passing cloud spreads over the dull face of the bay; the grey boulders and dark Silurian cliffs turn a faint violet in the glow. From the nearest shore comes a sound of trickling water, and the sleepy' wish wish' of the waves against the rocks. We too feel ourselves yielding to the influences of the hour; slipping away into a sort of dreamy semiconsciousness, a midway state between sleep and waking, which lasts perhaps till we are aroused by hearing our keel come crunch upon the sand with a thump which sends the water flying out of every pot and pan. Wood-pigeons, roused at our approach, rise noisily out of the bushes; a belated cuckoo responding loudly from the little bill above. All the chimneys of our small temporary abode are smoking hospitably, and, as we leave the boat and clamber hastily up the stone-strewn path, suddenly a faint but very suggestive smell of baked potatoes seems to be wafted down to us upon the evening air.

EMLY LAWLESS.