136 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



He remembers the first occasion on which he 

 summoned up courage to offer a criticism at a meet- 

 ing of the society. 



A piece of rock was exhibited with a cup-like 

 excavation, reputed to be produced by the boring 

 powers of the limpet. Upon this he observed that 

 if the limpet were increasing in size, as was reasonable 

 to suppose it would be, during the process of boring 

 so deep a hole, the hole would be wider below than 

 above, rather of the shape of an inverted cup than 

 like the excavation which was being exhibited. Mr. 

 Fraser, who was at that time the secretary of the 

 society, at once saw the point he was making, and 

 agreed with his view. Subsequently he had to vin- 

 dicate his opinion in argument with his friend, the 

 late Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys, and had the honour of con- 

 vincing that celebrated conchologist, who was not 

 easily turned from an opinion he had once adopted. 

 The ingenious experiments upon this same animal, 

 the common limpet, which he carried out and described 

 some thirty years afterwards, will be referred to 

 later on. 



In the literature of natural history perhaps no 

 passage has been more frequently quoted or referred 

 to than that in which Professor Forbes describes the 

 breaking up of the Brittle Starfish, Luidiafragilissima, 

 which he had all but captured, and the slipping back 

 into the deep of its severed arm " with something 

 very like a wink of derision." It is well known that 

 starfishes when they lose their arms are able to grow 

 them again, so that it is inaccurate to speak of the 

 disintegrating propensities of Luidia as suicidal. The 



