CHAPTEE LIX. 



October Storms Cablegram Predictions Indications of coming Storms Geordie Braid, the 

 St. Andrews and Newport Coach-driver The Naturalist in Winter Drowned Hedge- 

 hogs : Spines become soft and gelatinous Lophius Piscatorius Disproportion between 

 head and body in the Devil-Fish a puzzle An Itinerant Fiddler. 



THE storms of the latter days of October [November 1877] were 

 exceedingly severe along our western seaboard, and terribly so, as 

 more than one correspondent assures us, amongst the Hebrides. 

 It is worth noting with what marvellous punctuality these Trans- 

 atlantically telegraphed storms reach our shores. They are " up 

 to time," with all the precision almost of our best appointed mail 

 trains ; quite as punctual, at all events, to their predicted time on 

 several occasions lately as our ocean mail-carrying steam ships to 

 their appointed dates of arrival. This last October storm, for 

 example, was telegraphed as being due on our British shores on 

 or about Saturday, the 27th, and so correct, considering all the 

 difficulties of such meteorological vaticinations, was the predic- 

 tion, that the storm actually reached us here on the evening of 

 the 26th, increasing in intensity throughout the night and until 

 mid-day of the 27th, the very day fixed upon, when it blew 

 with all the force of a hurricane, and the rain fell in torrents, 

 accompanied, too that none of the essentials of a great storm 

 might be wanting by vivid lightning, and thunder peals loud 

 enough to make the deafest hear, or at all events feel, for it is 

 no exaggeration to say that the very ground seemed at times to 

 tbfrill responsive to the aerial concussion. The 26th had dawned 

 bright and clear, and so continued throughout the day; one of 

 those " pet days," in short, not uncommon at this season, the sea, 



