FEBRUARY, 1882. 127 



quently, obliged to be occasionally out of water at spring 

 tides, can keep a supply of water in the concave shell, 

 but with the flat side downward scarcely any moisture can 

 be retained. We do not recollect ever having seen an 

 oyster attached to a stone or rock by the flat side. 



No sooner do we get clear of Eriska Sound with the 

 entering tide than the cry of " the Yankees are upon us " 

 rises to every lip, but after a desperate pull to the shelter 

 of the " old wife's rock," the fitful blast has shifted and 

 permits us to dodge home, with a prospect of dreaming 

 of endless tangle stems, and tangle fronds covered with 

 pellucidce, and surrounded by crimson barred trochi ; 

 while dog-whelks and great sea anemones and multiform 

 and many coloured zoophytes, gleam through the waters 

 around. 



FEBRUARY, 1882. 



We have had a charming day ending in a beautiful 

 moonlight night, and the whole of Benderloch has looked 

 its best under the double smile of sun and moon. To- 

 morrow is full moon, and we are hopefully looking 

 forward to decent weather, although a most unwelcome 

 radiance surrounds the moon to-night, as if it had the 

 will but not the way to form a warning halo ; and the 

 peculiar snakes in the sky as the sun went to its rest 

 seemed also to presage wind. In the meantime we have 

 enjoyed a thorough summer day, as we wandered through 

 the low-lying land " between the lochs ;" and not only 

 were the gnats busy at mid-day about the roadsides, but 

 the bees themselves were afoot, and there was no reason 

 whatever to prevent them finding some little honey in 



