wrote it down on the hide of his pet cow, which he had had made for the purpose into a book, which has ever since borne this name. The volume contains matter of a very miscellaneous character: A fragment of Genesis; a fragment of Nennius’ _History of the Britons_, done into Gaelic by Gilla Caomhain, who died before 1072; an _amhra_ or elegy on S. Colum Cille, written by Dallan Forgail, the poet, in 592; fragments of the historic tale of the _Mesca Uladh_, or _Inebriety of the Ulstermen_; fragments of the cattle‐spoils _Táin Bo Dartadha_ and _Táin Bo Flidais_; the navigation of Madduin about the Atlantic for three years and seven months; imperfect copies of the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_, the destruction of the _Bruighean da Dearga_, or _Court of Da Dearga_, and murder of King Conairé Mór; a history of the great pagan cemeteries of Erinn and of the various old books from which this and other pieces were compiled; poems by Flann of Monasterboice and others; together with various other pieces of history and historic romance chiefly referring to the ante‐Christian period, and especially that of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Three pages, containing curious prayers and the legend of _The Withering of Cuchulain and the Birds of Emer_, extracted from the _Leabhar buidh Slaine_, or _Yellow Book of Slane_, one of the ancient lost books of Ireland from which the _Leabhar na h‐Uidhré_ was compiled, have been selected. The _Book of Leinster_, a folio of over four hundred pages, appears as the next. It was compiled in the first half of the XIIth century by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, by order of Aedh Mac Crimhthainn, the tutor of Dermot, King of Leinster. Among other pieces of internal evidence pointing to this conclusion are the following entries, the first in the original hand, the second by one strange but ancient, translated and quoted by O’Curry: “Benedictions and health from Finn, the Bishop of Kildare, to Aedh Mac Crimhtain, the tutor of the chief King of Leth Mogha Nuadut (or of Leinster and Munster), successor of Colaim Mic Crumtaind of, and chief historian of, Leinster, in wisdom, intelligence, and the cultivation of books, knowledge, and learning. And I write the conclusion of this little tale for thee, O acute Aedh! thou possessor of the sparkling intellect. May it be long before we are without thee! It is my desire that thou shouldst always be with us. Let Mac Loran’s book of poems be given to me, that I may understand the sense of the poems that are in it; and farewell in Christ. “O Mary! it is a great deed that has been done in Erinn this day, the Kalends of August—Diarmait Mac Donnchadda Mic Murchada, King of Leinster and of the Danes (of Dublin), to have been banished over the sea eastwards by the men of Erinn! Uch, uch, O Lord! what shall I do?”