296 The Naturalist of C^t,mbrae. 



a committee of exploration for dredging in the waters 

 off the north-east coast of England. They were able 

 to engage a tug called the Bonnie Dundee, with a 

 captain and three men, at a cost of three pounds ten 

 shillings a day. Robertson was agreeably surprised at 

 the cheapness, since at Cumbrae, where rowing-boats 

 can be had for threepence an hour, he had been 

 asked twelve pounds for a day's use of a steam-tug. 



The committee, minus Mr. Henry Brady, starting 

 from Sunderland on their first cruise, had on board 

 with them the Rev. A. M. Norman and the wife and 

 some of the children of G. S. Brady. The day was 

 fine, yet there was some swell on the sea. Although 

 it was not great, it kept the boat in a kind of up and 

 down motion, and was soon too much for the ladies. 

 Even the naturalists felt more or less squeamish, 

 which of them more and which less it may not be 

 politic to specify, since in the biographies of those 

 who were most unwell the question of degree might 

 hereafter be challenged. So far as the day's dredging 

 was concerned, however, there was nothing to com- 

 plain of, 



During the week the small dredge and the large 

 one were commonly used at the same time, and 

 Robertson was glad to observe that the heavy dredge 

 seldom secured any species that was not also found 

 in its smaller companion. By way of exception, on 

 one occasion when the vessel was drifting sideways, 

 and the two dredges were wording one on one side 

 and the other on the other side of the paddle-box, 

 one of them came up crowded with a single species 

 of sea-urchin, while the other had but one small 



