130 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



Kennedy, who for many years successfully conducted 

 a botanical class in the Glasgow Mechanics' Insti- 

 tution. Not only flowering plants but seaweeds were 

 well known to him, and as he had a summer residence 

 at Millport, near to Mr. Robertson's, they had many 

 walks along the shore that were fruitful in instruction 

 to one of them and pleasant to both. With him Mr. 

 Robertson had his first dredging experience. In 

 dredging Mr. Robertson was destined to become an 

 expert, and he still pursues the " sport " with great 

 skill and ardour. His early views on the subject are 

 thus expressed in his commonplace book for 1856 : 



"Those who have a taste for natural history will 

 find unbounded pleasure in dredging. Every plunge 

 of the dredge into the deep is the commencement of 

 a pleasurable suspense till it is again hauled up, a 

 lottery bag not just in the usual way of ' all prizes 

 and no blanks,' nor all blanks and no prizes, for 

 there is a kind of happy conscientiousness about our 

 bag, that all is fair play, whatever may be our lot. 



" None but those who have been at the turning out 

 of a well-filled dredge can know anything of the 

 glowing excitement experienced at that moment, 

 when the contents have been brought from a surface 

 on which, in all probability, no human eye ever gazed ; 

 and although many of these gatherings from the deep 

 may have been previously from time to time brought 

 to light, yet many things that come up though not 

 rare may be interesting, others may have been seldom 

 seen, and the lottery is open to all to bring up a 

 never-before-described animal or vegetable, living or 

 dead. We may have drawn up our dredge from few 



