2/8 Transactions of the [Sess. 



Coscinodisci ; while it cannot be doubted that the presence of often 

 brilliantly coloured crustacean larvae aid in producing the same 

 result. The fact is no less significant, that although these streaks 

 are often apparently on the very surface in daylight, careful appli- 

 ances will fail to collect them. If, however, the collecting-net be 

 Slink some fathoms, an abundance of material of the desired kind 

 will be procured. It is also important that, with due precautions, 

 these floating masses may — for example, in the vicinity of an iso- 

 lated rock — be made the means of arriving at an approximate idea 

 of the velocity of ocean currents, about which so little, it must be 

 acknowledged, is yet known with precision. 



III.—THE RED DEER (CERVUS ELAPHUS). 



By Mb SYMINGTON GRIEVE, President. 



(Read Nov. 20, 1885.) 



It has been most difficult for me to decide upon a subject for my 

 address to you to-night. I am well aware that you naturally ex- 

 pect me to discourse to you upon some theme that will prove of 

 general interest, and it has been in that very fact that my principal 

 difficulty has arisen. Most of the localities at which I have carried 

 on investigations are so distant from Edinburgh, that I suppose 

 very few of you have visited them ; and without having been there, 

 it can hardly be expected that you should have that special inter- 

 est which makes one an enthusiastic listener even when a subject 

 is somewhat dry. It is therefore not without considerable doubt 

 in my own mind that I have resolved to read to you to-night some 

 notes on Red Deer, suggested by incidents and observations made 

 during a trip to the Deer-forest of the island of Rum, one of the 

 Hebrides, in July 1884. I need not tell you of our voyage to 

 Rum in the good steamer Hebridean, as many a voyage of greater 

 length, and accompanied by more stirring adventures, has been 

 told before. Suffice it to say we arrived at Loch Screresort early 

 one morning, and were soon landed at a substantial stone quay, 

 from which we found our way to Kinloch, the proprietor's house, 

 situated about half a mile distant, at the head of the loch. When 

 we got time to look about us, we found that Kinloch was situated 

 at the entrance to a valley that stretched away westwards for 

 some miles. To the south the cluster of grand mountains that 

 make Rum such a conspicuous object in the landscape from most 

 points of the western mainland and islands, reared up their heads to 



