io8 LOCH C RE RAN. 



have examined, and it bore every evidence of being in a 

 capital condition the liver weighing not less than i^lb. 

 Why are you thus, my friend, and wherefore were you 

 left lamenting, as so many of your species so often are ? 

 Not a ventriloquist, it yet must speak from its stomach, 

 so we cut out this organ in quest of the answer to our 

 question. As in almost every case that has come 

 under our inspection, when thus stranded it had 

 come into shallow water in pursuit of skates, and 

 in this creature, 3ft. 3in. long, we found a skate- 

 fish 2ft. long and i6in. across the wings. The skate 

 was uninjured by the formidable teeth of the creature, 

 and yet it was curled up in the huge sack of a stomach, 

 with its tail turned back and its wings folded over its 

 back, just as if the angler had carefully packed it 

 for immediate despatch. That the devourer had not 

 been injured by the nature of its prey was 'clear from the 

 fact that the remains of a second skate, consisting of the 

 teeth and jaw-bones, with a few of the vertebrae, lay .along- 

 side the other ; so its career of usefulness had been cut 

 short apparently simply through being stranded. The 

 only other contents of the stomach were of a character to 

 demand consideration in any less gluttonous fish, but in 

 such a gormandiser the presence of a handful of withered 

 Zostera marina and a large blade of sacharina seaweed 

 might mean nothing but that they had been swallowed 

 by the omnivorous creature, along with its more legitimate 

 prey, blindly and without intent. 



It so happened that the skate in question was not the 

 only one that came into our hands to-day, one of more 

 notable dimensions having fallen to the skilled hands of 

 Donald; and as we are at the "table. of contents," we 

 may note the result of a post-mortem just concluded. 



