130 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



stare, dives down as if he did not like the looks 

 of the party ; and he only reappears after some 

 five minutes, as a mere speck on the surface of 

 the water. I do not even grasp at the rifle, 

 which is in its cover at the bottom of the boat ; 

 but it was the death of a seal which, on a 

 former occasion, enabled me to find the right 

 place for dredging up the Serpulse, which are 

 so beautiful either alive as aquarium specimens, 

 or dead as coral-like ornaments. I had finished 

 my lunch on the island a little lower down than 

 we are now, and was enjoying the pipe of peace, 

 and watching the buzzards wheeling round the 

 opposite peak, and two old ravens soaring, 

 croaking over my head, when a seal made his 

 appearance suddenly within fifty yards. The 

 opportunity was too good to be lost, as I had 

 promised a skin to a friend, and in another in- 

 stant he was struggling on the surface, soon to 

 struggle no more. He floated until the boat, 

 hastily launched, almost touched him, but sank 

 just as the men were reaching out the boat- 

 hook towards him. Next morning the boatmen 

 easily recovered his body with the small trawl- 

 net, and with it a quantity of very large white 

 twisted tubes, which I found on the rock where 

 they had been thrown away. Next day saw me 

 round at the same place with the dredge, and 

 in the first haul, just where the seal had sunk, 

 the net came up quite full of these Serpulse, far 



