JURA. NATURAL HISTORY. 185 



history still found in the Highlands, the water bull 

 seems as yet to maintain his ground with some ob- 

 stinacy ; and, like other goblins, is not in want of 

 positive ocular testimony in proof of his existence. 

 This animal is supposed to reside in several of the 

 lakes, in Loch Awe for example, and in Loch Rannoch ; 

 combining powers and properties worthy of the pen 

 of Spencer. He is occasionally angled for with a 

 sheep made fast to a cable secured round an oak, but 

 as yet no tackle has been found sufficiently strong to 

 hold him.* But enough of these, since Jura presents 

 specimens of undoubted reality, more worthy of in- 

 vestigation. 



When becalmed some years ago on the eastern shore 

 of the island, I had the fortune to take a fish not yet 

 known to naturalists, and which it will not therefore 

 be out of place to describe. It is of the genus Pe- 

 tromyzon, and forms a new species in this family, hitherto 

 but imperfectly known .f It was found adhering to 

 the back of a grey gurnard which, as well as the 

 striped gurnard, not included in Mr. Pennant's catalogue, 

 abounds in these seas. As a naturalist, I must censure 

 the humanity of the sailor who threw it back into the 

 sea after the drawing and description were completed. 



All the species of Petromyzon as yet described by 

 ichthyologists are inhabitants of fresh water ; with the 

 exception of the marinus, which migrates into rivers 

 for the same purposes as the salmon. The present 



* This belief is not so completely limited to the most credulous 

 part of society as the reader might imagine. In one of these Highland 

 excursions I met a farmer who was watching for one of those 

 monsters, while his two sons were disturbing with dung forks the 

 deep holes where he was supposed to be lying. The musket was 

 loaded with sixpences, as it is reputed that he is vulnerable by silver 

 shot only. 



t Plate XXIX. fig. 1. 



