THE FIRTH OF FORTH. 29 



distance, and then dropped dead. The eider 

 being also called the " St Cuthbert's Duck," we 

 presented this case to my old and very dear 

 friend, one of the ministers of St Cuthbert's. Of 

 the former two cases one is in my brother's 

 collection at Rossdhu, the other in my own. 



Under a rather stiff gale we recrossed the 

 channel, but only when under the lee of the 

 North Berwick coast did our captain's brow 

 clear up. Well did this skilled boatman of the 

 Firth know how suddenly the blast he had been 

 dreading might, like Harpsdale's, come at last! 

 With a quiet chuckle he muttered " ISToo we're 

 a' richt," and joyously, not to say triumphantly, 

 steered into port. 



The death of the black guillemots on 7th April 

 1864 gave rise to the following correspondence: 



"THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



" SiE, The pleasantly-written articles upon the 

 wild fowl of the Firth of Forth, with which your 

 papers upon Natural History are agreeably begun, 

 contain a statement, the importance of which the 

 writer seems to have been unconscious of. 



