50 LOCH C RERAN. 



an accomplished neighbour, he has only to attempt to 

 draw up a dredge made of fine cheese cloth from 20 

 fathoms deep. Up it comes, and the eager hands that 

 bring it on board are pretty tired of its thoroughly 

 receptive character ere it comes in over the gunwale. 

 But what cannot enthusiasm endure, and how can you 

 reconcile the fact that those hands sunk well over the 

 wrists in the slime of the bottom belong to very sensitive 

 minds, and are fed by decidedly squeamish stomachs ! 

 With what delight does the investigator draw out from 

 amid the mass some stray specimen of a velutina, and 

 how keenly does he glean the sediment for some hoped-for 

 rarity. The minutest sea-slug is handled with regard and 

 affection, and a shout of joy heralds the appearance of a 

 small webbed star fish. A star fish webbed between the 

 rays, whose presence is, indeed, such a rarity with us that 

 we have never before met with it in Loch Creran. We 

 must draw a veil over its latter end, so far as we are con- 

 cerned, nor say how it managed to be again committed to 

 the briny. I'm afraid, my friend, you thought more of 

 those delicious pectens than of their companions in mis- 

 fortune. 



That last draw was in the dusk, and the contents had 

 to be removed and examined by daylight next morning ; 

 and well that it was so, for how could one be expected to 

 see in a rough examination in a rough boat the two 

 delicate organisms we drag from a branching Sertularia, 

 Minute Crustacea they are, about half an inch long, and 

 not unlike a mantis in their movements and appearance, 

 being extremely fragile and threadlike, (Caprella.} Yet 

 their eyes are comparatively large, their antennae marked, 

 their legs numerous, and they are altogether, from their 

 tenuity and the great hooks at the end of every limb, 



