106 NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BELL ROCK. 



In the course of their passage in the Smeaton, the vessel 

 narrowly escaped shipwreck. Under orders to call at the 

 Rock for lumber, they had apparently lost their bearings 

 through fog; for, suddenly startled by the sound of the 

 smith's hammer and anvil, they had just time to put the 

 ship about and escape running full tilt on the north-west 

 portion of the Rock, which, from this incident, still bears 

 the name of "James Craw's Horse." 



On the completion of operations at the Rock, the horse 

 " Bassey," failing somewhat from age, was pensioned off by 

 the Commissioners, and allowed to roam at liberty on the 

 island of Inchkeith till his death in 1813. "The fame of 

 this animal's labours," writes Mr Stevenson, "together with 

 his strength and excellent proportions as a draught-horse, 

 having attracted the attention of Dr John Barclay, that 

 eminent anatomist procured the bones and set them up in 

 his museum. This valuable collection, it is understood, is 

 to be bequeathed to the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; 

 so that the bones of the Bell Rock horse " (to use the doctor's 

 own language) " will be seen and admired as a useful skeleton 

 and a source of instruction when those of his employers lie 

 mingled with the dust." 



With the exception of a few days, the weather this month 

 has been extremely favourable ; indeed, for the greater part, 

 summer-like a pleasant change from what we have experi- 

 enced of late. The peculiar white rubber-like folds of ribbon 

 which have been adhering to the Rock surface for the past two 

 months, and which we erroneously supposed to be the ova of 

 some fish, turn out to be the spawn of the slugs I have already 

 described, and with which the Rock has been freely invested 

 of late proof of which several have been seen in the act of 

 extrusion. These shell -less molluscs have been much in 

 evidence this season; and representatives of three distinct 

 families are to be met with, namely, the Onchidoridae, Tri- 

 toniidse, and Eolididae. Cannibals, they attack their own 

 species without compunction, and devour each other's spawn. 



