262 LOCH CRERAN. 



" Whenever the way seemed long, 



Or his heart began to fail, 

 She would sing a more beautiful song, 

 Or tell a more marvellous tale." 



Aye, even to the humblest of her votaries. We have 

 never hitherto met with a noble shell with large umbones 

 and heart-shaped, hence named Isocardia cor, that has 

 been taken about lona. Two dead valves of a single 

 specimen came up in one draw of the dredge, and 

 seemed to us a most remarkable coincidence, as they 

 had evidently long been separated, growing a huge bunch 

 of barnacles on one edge, large Anomice, or false oysters, 

 nestling in the snuggest corner of the inner side, with 

 strong serpulse tubes crossing the hinge-joint, and 

 altogether showing a complete divorce without the least 

 apparent likelihood of ever coming together again. 

 That the small dredge travelling in the middle of the 

 loch should pick up both seemed to be beyond the 

 ordinary laws of chances, but yet " the unexpected," we 

 are told, "always," or at least often, "happens." This 

 most interesting, but apparently rare, shell seems then to 

 have lived in our enclosed loch if it does not do so 

 now and there is a prospect of our obtaining some day 

 a perfect specimen. For we need not consider the 

 chances of it having been borne inward from the outer 

 waters, as it is a deep-water and not an active animal ; 

 and our waters are wholly out of the track of ocean waifs. 

 One can scarcely imagine it possible for the open- 

 edged unprotected scallop, P. opercuZaris, to exist amid its 

 numberless enemies, but the tangle fronds dragged up 

 to-day contained large numbers of minute young stick- 

 ing all over them, showing that the creatures managed 

 to reproduce their kind in safety and abundance. Their 



