240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Mr Young also exhibited specimens of a beautiful and rare land 

 shell — Azeca tridens — found among moss in the woods at Bridge 

 of Allan last autumn by Mr Foulis, student of Glasgow University. 

 The occurrence of this shell in Scotland has been doubted, although 

 the late Dr Fleming, of Edinburgh, states that it was found a 

 great many years ago by Captain Laskey, at Carline Park, near 

 Leith, Mr Young stated that so far as he was aware no further 

 notice of its occurrence in Scotland had been recorded until Mr 

 Foulis' discovery of this new locality, where it appears to be not 

 uncommon. *•' 



Dr James Stirton exhibited a series of mosses collected by Dr 

 Alexander M'Hattie (lately of this city), illustrative of the close 

 affinities of the lower forms of vegetation on both sides of the 

 Northern Atlantic, between the parallels of latitude 50° — 60°. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — JVotes on the Herring. By Mr David Robertson. 



The capricious movements and behaviour of the herring have 

 long been a puzzle both to fishermen and philosophers, and may 

 so remain for a long time to come. The most common of these 

 freaks are the occasional appearance of the herring at, and deser- 

 tion of, particular shores. These, however, do not bear directly 

 on the few remarks that I am going to make, and I may therefore 

 refer only to one or two cases, which embody the chief character- 

 istics of a long list of peculiarities. There is so much told by the 

 fishermen of the marvellous habits of the herring, that in the 

 absence of well- authenticated facts, it is difficult to know what to 

 believe or what to doubt. 



The following is a quotation from Mr Mitchell's well-known 

 work on the herring: — 



"From 1690 to 1709 a very extensive fishery was carried on at 

 Cromarty, whither the herrings annually resorted in considerable 

 abundance. Shortly after the Union, 1707, an immense shoal 

 was thrown, or rather ran themselves, ashore in a little bay to 

 the east of the town. The beach was covered with them to the 



* Mr Foulis has this summer revisited the station, and found the shell in 

 such abundance, that in a patch of moss, not more than three or four feet in 

 length, he succeeded in obtaining upwards of 300 examples, which fact con- 

 firms former statements as to its gregarious and comparatively local dis- 

 tribution. 



