In Ireland these instruments are much more abundant. Eleven specimens are mentioned by Wilde[715] as being in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, and there are three in the British Museum, as well as one in that at Edinburgh. [Illustration: Fig. 237.—Garvagh, Derry. ½] That engraved as Fig. 237 is in the collection of Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., and was found at Garvagh, county Derry. The blade is fluted somewhat like that of the Tay specimen. In one of those engraved by Wilde (Fig. 405) it is more highly ornamented. In another the socket is not closed at the end, but resembles that of the Windsor example already mentioned. This appears to be the one engraved by Vallancey[716] who observes that it was “called by the Irish a Seare,” and that it was used “to cut herbs, acorns, misletoe, &c.” In another[717] the blade forms a direct continuation of the socket as in Fig. 238, which is engraved from a specimen in the British Museum, found near Athlone, county Westmeath. Vallancey, in his “Collectanea,” has figured another. In the collection of Mr. J. Holmes is another example of this type. Another sickle of the same character as Fig. 237, found near Ballygawley,[718] Tyrone, has also been figured. This specimen is among those in the British Museum. A socketed sickle, double-edged, and with a concavity on each side at the angle between the blade and the socket so deep as to meet and form a hole, was found in Alderney, and is engraved in the _Archæological Association Journal_.[719] With it were found socketed celts, spear-heads, and broken swords and daggers. This may be regarded as a French rather than an English example. [Illustration: Fig. 238.—Athlone. ½] In my own collection is another, from the Seine at Paris, about 7 inches in length along the outer edge of the blade, which extends past the end of the socket. This still contains a part of the wooden handle, which has been secured in its place by two rivets, apparently of bronze. In general outline this sickle is much like Fig. 234, but the blade is narrower and more curved and the socket more flattened. In the museum at Amiens is another sickle, in form closely resembling Fig. 234, but with a loop at the back of the socket. M. Chantre in his magnificent work, “L’Age du Bronze,” does not specify this socketed type, though he divides the form without socket into five different varieties. The socketed form appears to be quite unknown in the South of France, as it also is in Switzerland. These three are the only instances I can cite of socketed sickles having been found outside the British Isles, so that this type of instrument appears to be peculiarly our own. The existence of a socket shows that the form does not belong to an early period in the Bronze Age, and the same is to be inferred from the character of the other bronze objects with which the Alderney sickle was found associated.