~VALENCIA.~--The next parish to America, the home of Atlantic cable stations. The island remarkable for the number of tropical plants which grow in the open. Climate unusually mild. Boating, sailing, and bathing in the season. Deep-sea fishing with islanders. Good hotel, comfortable, clean, and cheap. Other accommodation difficult to obtain. ~WATERFORD~, see page 112. ~WATERVILLE.~--Principal posting place on Atlantic coast tour. Splendid watering place, beautifully situated on strip of land dividing mountain lake from sea. Fine strand. Sea and lake fishing. The station for Mackey Bennet cable system. Three good hotels, M'Elligott's and Galvin's, on the coast, and the Southern Hotel on the shore of the picturesque Lough Currane, within a stone's throw of the sea. Very good cottage accommodation in summer season. [Illustration] Natural History of the South and West of Ireland. By R. LLOYD PRAEGER, B.A., B.E., &c. The Natural History of the South and West of Ireland possesses a special and peculiar interest in the occurrence in this region of a number of plants and animals which are rare in or absent from Great Britain and the adjoining portions of Europe. Let us first consider the general geographical features of this area, and the geological characters which have produced those features. Ireland has often been likened to a saucer, consisting as it does of a great central plain, fringed with mountain groups disposed around the coast. The plain has a slightly undulating floor of Carboniferous limestone; the groups of hills are mostly formed of older rocks, which break through the level limestones. On our journey from Dublin to Athlone, or from Dublin to Mallow, we pass across typical portions of the central plain; and the brown ridges of Slieve Bloom and Devil's Bit, and the greener heights of the Galtees, furnish good examples of the masses of older rocks that rise out of the plain. In considering the features and natural history of this wide area, it will be convenient to divide it into districts, which we shall treat of in the following order:-- 1. Wicklow and Wexford. 2. Waterford and East Cork. 3. West Cork and Kerry. 4. Clare and East Galway. 5. West Galway and West Mayo. 6. Sligo. 7. The Central Plain and River Shannon.