8 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



than one foot. That such wholesale destruction should have 

 overtaken this particular fish, while others inhabiting the 

 same localities escaped, is certainly somewhat puzzling. 

 They must have been literally pounded to death amongst 

 the rocks by the force of the waves, having probably in the 

 first place been caught up by the ground-swell invading 

 their haunts at low-water. The only other fishes I observed 

 were half a dozen Anglers (Lophius piscatoriiis], a few 

 Sea-Bullheads (both Coitus bubalis and C. scorpiiis ; one 

 of the latter, got at Morrison's Haven, being a well-marked 

 example of the var. grccnlandicd], a Whiting, and a small 

 Coal-fish. 



Of the Invertebrates, none seem to have suffered more 

 than the Mollusca ; and perhaps the most interesting forms 

 I met with were two Cephalopods, namely Rossia macrosoma, 

 of which one specimen occurred at Morrison's Haven, and 

 Eledone cirrosa, . of which nine lay stranded on the beach 

 west of North Berwick (see separate note on p. 53). An 

 example of another Cephalopod, Todarodes sagittatus (Lmk.), 

 was cast ashore west of Portobello. Among Gastropods, 

 the Common Whelk (Buccinum undatuni) was a conspicuous 

 sufferer, large numbers of shells, with the all but dead 

 animals hanging half out of them, being thrown up by the 

 waves in many places. The still larger Neptunea antiqua 

 had also succumbed in considerable numbers. Shells of 

 Pkiline aperta, with the animals attached, were fairly common 

 among rejectamenta immediately to the west of Portobello ; 

 and on the beach at Prestonpans, the day after the storm, I 

 picked up two specimens of Capulus Jiungaricus still showing 

 signs of life. 



But no forms seem to have fared worse than some of the 

 Lamellibranchs. Living gregariously, as so many of them 

 do, practically on the surface of banks of sand or mud in 

 more or less shallow water (some not even beyond low-water 

 mark), they fall a ready prey to the fury of storms of the 

 present type. Whole colonies of certain species must have 

 been literally ploughed up and swept bodily away by the 

 terrific ground swell, and after much tossing too and fro 

 deposited in a dead or dying state on the gently sloping 

 beach. A few Oysters (Ostrea edulis] came ashore at Preston- 



