The North Bull House MouseAuthor(s): Eugene O'MahonySource: The Irish Naturalists' Journal, Vol. 5, No. 11 (Sep., 1935), p. 291Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25532495 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 06:13

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The IrishNaturalists' Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.38 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:13:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

September, 1935.] The Irish Naturalists' Journal. 291

THE NORTH BULL HOUSE MOUSE.

Sir,?In I.N.J, of May, 1931 (p. 199), there is a paper of mine on the

Mammals of the North Bull, Dublin Bay. In this paper I had doubts of

there being any of Jameson's "

protectively coloured "

house mouse left.

Since that date I have taken four examples of Mus musculus on the island, three on the dunes, and one in the coastguard's cottage.

These four specimens are definitely protectively coloured and are sandy brown above with the underside creamy white.

I hope to publish a paper on the Irish house and field mice shortly. ?Yours, etc.,

National Museum of Ireland, Dublin. EUGENE O'MAHONY.

THE BELFAST POSTGLACIAL SECTION.

Sir,?In the interesting paper by Charlesworth and Erdtman on the section at MUewater Dock (p. 234 supra) the Alder is not included in the pollen analysis given. It appears to be inferred that the Alder is absent from the peat at Belfast, and its absence is used as an indication of the age of this plant-bed. But Alder occurs in the Belfast peat, and it is included in the list of plants obtained from it which I published in my paper on

the Alexandra Dock section in Proc. B.'N.F.C, 1886-87, Appendix, pp. 32 and 48.?Yours, etc.,

Dublin. R. LLOYD PRAEGER.

BELFAST NATURALISTS' FIELD CLUB SURVEY OF ANTIQUITIES. MEGALITHS AND RATHS.

Sir,?One of the by-products of such brilliantly constructive work as the B.'N.F.C. Survey must be to stimulate critical appreciation of many problems which hitherto, if not entirely ignored, have been left aside in the search for material evidence of our early cultures. To this end I offer the following few comments on the invaluable report contributed to the

July issue of I.N.J, by Mr. E. E. Evans and Miss M. Gaffikin.

P. 342. "

Many of the monuments mapped have entirely disappeared, arid we may never know to what types they belonged." On the other hand, every monument mapped is broadly differentiated as to type, and there is theretore an apparent conflict between the maps and the statement quoted.

P. 242. *'

destruction (of the monuments) .... probably began in

early Ueltic times." The grounds of probability are not given in support of so interesting a statement and would be of considerable value to the student.

P. 244. "

We must envisage the megalithic folk occupying clearings in the upland forests." This valid generalization, applied to remote inland

areas, suggests a metal culture not possessed by the earlier "

neolithic "

immigrants who penetrated no further than the coastal fringe and who seem to have used an undifferentiated and presumably early class of pottery (Neolithic "A ") from which the varying pottery types of our chalcolithic

river-folk and horned cairn builders were derived, though conceivably derived elsewhere.

P. 245. The writers would perhaps appear to hint that crop-cultivation, if not also pot-making, began in Northern Ireland at the period of our earliest collective tombs. One might even gain the impression at this point that they associate the megalith builders with the introduction of these

supremely important innovations, while relegating their "

neolithic "

predecessors to the inferior status of mesolithic food-gatherers and fishers

unpossessed ot the arts essential to settlement and organized communal existence. While I agree with them that it is too early to draw definite

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.38 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:13:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions