42 LOCH C RE RAN. 



mass of brittle stars that in thousands fill the dredge to 

 the mouth, several specimens, and place them in the dish. 

 See the beauty of the limbs, the marvellous variety and 

 beauty of colouring, the numberless delicate ray spines 

 and flexible cirri ; just one of those creatures well depicted 

 on a sheet of paper would be charming ; but there is an 

 embarras des richesscs, and the multitude horrifies you. 

 The dredge must have been passing over tangle, and 

 gathering these wriggling creatures from the fronds. Now 

 again the bag is full of the shells of the Turritella, 

 those long pointed shells that must be extremely numerous 

 in the loch, where we have more than once taken several 

 thousand in a single draw of the dredge. When this is 

 the case few other species are found among them, no doubt 

 the carnivorous character of this shell fish sufficiently 

 accounting for the absence of others. 



The ladies ^are shrugging their shoulders ; beauty, 

 indeed, amid such rubbish, and joy over such a creature 

 too ! A miniature elephant's trunk to appearance, we 

 thought, as it came out from the mass ; an elephant's 

 trunk about 7 inches long we think it now as it stands 

 before us in spirits. A sea-leech, or skate-worm, covered 

 over with tubercles and fine hairs, (Pontobdella mnricata) 

 it had settled itself by means of its sucker foot upon the 

 back of an ascidian, and with its sucker mouth was 

 wandering around, extending and retracting, seeking 

 something to catch hold of. To the finger it attached 

 itself with unpleasant sucking action, but showed 

 no sign of teeth, as in the leech proper. What is this 

 inside the ascidian ? Several small shells deeply 

 embedded in the body of the creature, and apparently 

 quite at home in that position, (Modiolaria.} How they 

 breathe is difficult to determine, as they are not at all 



