191 1- Moffat. — Luminous Ozv/s. 127 



\OTES BY C. B. MOFFAT, B.A. 



Miss Dobbs's article forms a welcome contribution to the 

 study of a question that is still in much need of further 

 elucidation, and it is supplemented by a letter from another 

 observer in the same locality, the Rev. W. H. Rennison, 

 who, when crossing by the ferry already referred to, has 

 repeatedly observed the moving lights of which Miss Dobbs 

 speaks, and who, like her, believes them to be due to 

 luminous birds. 



Mr. Rennison, writing on October 29th, 1910, to Mr. 

 Ussher. states that he has " again seen the light," which 

 he ascribes to " a bird of some sort," a few minutes before 

 six o'clock on a recent evening. " When I saw the light," 

 he proceeds, " it was low down near the quarry opposite 

 the Bride's mouth, and took a direction towards the top of 

 the hill, appearing to rise considerably from the ground and 

 then to fall again, reminding one rather of the motion of 

 swallows over water, suddenly dipping down, and rising 

 again. It then turned eastward and appeared regularly to 

 ' quarter ' all the low -lying marshy land between the Gorish 

 River and Dromorc Hill." Mr. Rennison, like Miss Dobbs, 

 remarks on the resemblance sometimes presented by the 

 light to that of an ordinary lamp, but he fully agrees with 

 her as to the impossibility of a human being " traversing 

 the extent of ground with the motion or in the time.'* 

 He states that he watched it on this occasion for half an 

 hour, and that the ferryman, who pronounced it " our old 

 friend the owl," informed him that he always saw it best 

 " on moonless nights in damp weather." In a postscript 

 Mr. Rennison adds that although on the particular evening 

 in question only one light was seen, he has " frequently 

 seen two, over Camphire and Bride Valley, which passed 

 and repassed each other." This corroborates the 



remarkable statement of Miss Dobbs, that, while " four 

 lights at a time " are the largest numbers she has seen, 

 " two is the usual number." 



Reference has been naturally made in the course of Miss 

 Dobbs's article to the correspondence which appeared in the 



