254 Eev. D. Landsborough's Account of a Dredging Excursion, 



miliaris, one live example of Echinocyamus pusillus, and the most 

 beautiful Solaster papposa I had ever seen, so bright in the colours 

 and so beautifully shaded as to be well-deserving of the name of 

 the sun-star. It had one defect. By some enemy, or by some 

 of the hard rubs of life, from which the inhabitants of the deep 

 are not exempted, it had lost one of its toes or fingers or rays ; but 

 the vis medicatrix of nature was hastening to make up the want. 



The kindness of Nature^s God is very manifest even to these 

 inferior animals. They lose their limbs ; but it would appear 

 that they do not suffer much thereby, for in emergences they 

 often throw them off of their own accord. 



But as the time was now at hand when the steamer was to start 

 in which I was to be homeward-bound, we shot our dredge for 

 the last time. Up came some sea-weeds and abundance of sand. 

 Entangled among the roots of Laminaria saccharina I discovered 

 something that seemed new to me. Though when lurking among 

 the roots it seemed scarcely deserving of notice, when I had dis- 

 entangled it, and had returned it to its native element in a 

 tumbler of sea-water, I was delighted with its beautiful appear- 

 ance, and soon found that it was Comatula rosacea, the feather- 

 star. Let any person who has not seen it look at the graceful 

 figure of it in Forbes^s ^ Starfishes,^ and he will have some idea of 

 its surpassing beauty when it is seen with its numerous scarlet 

 plumes waving in life. Mr. W. Thompson says that it is not 

 uncommon in Ireland ; Mr. Goodsir I observe has found it in 

 Shetland ; but I do not know that it had been obtained anywhere 

 else in Scotland till found in Lamlash bay. 



But the puffing steamer was now sending up its volumes of 

 smoke, reminding me that I must quit the Raven ; and what was 

 worse, must leave Mr. Smith, whose urbanity of manners, scien- 

 tific knowledge and great kindness had contributed so much to 

 my enjojrment of the excursion. There was not time to examine 

 the sand with which the dredge had been loaded ; but fortunately 

 before it was all swept back into the deep I remembered that 

 Mr. Bean had asked me to send him some shelly sand, and ac- 

 cordingly I made up a small packet of it for him. By applying 

 a lens to it I soon saw that it was valuable, and I sent half a 

 dozen handfuls of it to him and kept one for myself. He wrote 

 to me that it was the richest shelly sand that he had ever got, ex- 

 cept from Guernsey. Many of the shells it contained were very 

 minute, and as the study of microscopic shells was in some degree 

 new to me, I requested him to name for me those he found in his 

 larger portion of the sand, as well as the additional ones I found 

 in my handful. I shall subjoin the list. I have inserted Tere- 

 bratula aurita and Cardium medium which were found by me some 

 years ago in sand from the same delightful bay. 



