NOVEMBER, 1882. 243 



say all the sharp-eyed ones around ; and yet there is a 

 number of bits broken off the sea-grass. We are about 

 to empty it, when these startle us by leaping hither and 

 thither as we sink the net in the water, and soon it 

 dawns upon us that we have about a score of exquisite 

 green Crustacea, exactly the tint of the Zostera itself. 

 The wonderful transparency of the delicate tint, and the 

 extreme activity of the creature in the water, wholly hid 

 it from our eyes ; and, although we have been wading 

 through long stretches of grass, with here and there a 

 tail-spot goby flashing off before us, and myriads of little 

 mysidae skipping around, "we had not really caught sight 

 of a single one ot these living chips of Zostera marina. 



" Weather " enough and to spare, indeed, we have had 

 of late, and the provoking part of it all is that the season 

 is exceptionally mild, and no excuse for complaining of 

 ordinary severity of weather. We have been repeatedly 

 assured that the season is not severe, but with a gale 

 blowing two days out of three, and rain in such floods as 

 can scarcely be credited in a temperate clime, what more 

 " severe " weather could be forthcoming ? On the gth we 

 sought to traverse Glen Salloch, and view the land 

 through as cheerful spectacles as we could muster, for 

 the hillsides had still a subdued beauty on the now 

 gently intermingling tints of the sobering deciduous 

 leaves, great portion of which yet hung upon the trees, 

 even under the shadow of Ben Breac, down whose misty 

 shoulders the snow was creeping for the first time this 

 season. If the tints in the woods were so subdued, 

 those around the dull-hued loch were still more so 

 Appin and Eriska, drenched and sulky, bounding a com- 

 monly boundless view, and Loch Creran resembling 

 nothing so much as those mirror ponds our grandmothers 



