72 A GENERAL REFEREE. CHAP, vn 



he was less busy, he would tell us more about it ; but 

 neither of us ever mustered courage for a second visit." 



Another says " Boys out bird-nesting on the braes, 

 or fishing by the river-side or amongst the rocks, have 

 often got from him a lesson in Natural History which 

 they would hardly forget in a lifetime." 



Dick began to be considered a general referee. When 

 anything unusual was found a plant, a stone, a butter- 

 fly, or a fish he was at once appealed to. One day a 

 boy came in with a message from a fisherman. A sun- 

 fish had been caught in Thurso Bay, and brought ashore. 

 Dick was sent for to come and see it. He was busy 

 with his bread at the time, and could not leave the 

 bakehouse. The fisherman sent another message, saying 

 that if Dick did not come down immediately, he would 

 cut up the fish. "Then tell him to cut away," said 

 Dick ; " I don't like these peremptory orders." 



A person who made considerable pretensions to 

 botanical knowledge met him one day, and asked if he 

 knew whether the county produced any Statice armeria. 

 "Oh!" said Dick, "if you will just call it Lea Gilly- 

 flower, or, if you please, Thrift, you will find it at any 

 roadside." 



Another gentleman found a pretty flower growing 

 profusely in a small strath a few miles out of Thurso. 

 He took it to Dick. "Do you know that?" he asked. 

 " Yes," he said ; " you got it at the side of the burn at 

 Olrig." " How do you know that ?" " Because it grows 

 in two or three more places in Caithness ; but these are 

 loo far off for you to have been there to-day." 



