84 The Naturalist- of Cumbrae. 



faded fabrics in the dyer's vat, practising surgery, and 

 studying medicine, Robertson must in general have 

 had his hands pretty full, and these off days, among 

 the sea breezes and charming scenery, enlivened too 

 by feminine companionship, must have been very 

 refreshing. 



Shells were plentiful in the island then as they are 

 still, and gatherings were made, but it must be con- 

 fessed they were devoted to a not very scientific 

 object. With Littorina obtusata, a species of peri- 

 winkle, and the dog-whelk, Purpura lapillus, Robertson 

 worked out, upon a signboard six feet long, the name 

 of his employer and his occupation, setting off the 

 inscription on a background of other shells, and 

 flanking it with figures, one of which was a chameleon, 

 wrought in a kind of mosaic, this animal of changeful 

 colouring being chosen as emblematic of the dyer's 

 trade. When the signboard was put in the window,, 

 so many persons used to congregate on the path to 

 look at it that the police said he must remove it 

 This he refused to do, since it was in a perfectly 

 legitimate position, and it was their business, he told 

 them, not his, to keep the footway clear. A different 

 view of the position appears to have been recently 

 taken in America ; ^for, when an enterprising 

 advertiser in New York took to dressing the heads of 

 a party of seven sisters in his shop window, the 

 authorities interfered, owing to the crowd which 

 assembled blocking the thoroughfare, and we are told 

 that, the question being disputed at law, " the court 

 considered such an exhibition highly sensational and 

 the consequent obstruction a public nuisance." This,. 



