33 2 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



show that Robertson, notwithstanding the extreme 

 modesty of his disposition, was well able to hold his 

 own when it was a question either of popular opinion 

 or scientific authority confronting his personal obser- 

 vation of the facts of nature. Friends of greater 

 learning, greater ambition, and greater prominence 

 in the world of science, could not come in contact 

 with his amiable unselfish temper and clear pene- 

 trating intelligence without being refreshed, instructed, 

 and improved. How he attracted young as well as 

 old to the eager following of his own pursuits is un- 

 consciously illustrated by a passage in a paper " On 

 some Marine Mollusca," in which he chronicles that 

 his own powers as a collector had been surpassed, at 

 least in one particular, by some very juvenile 

 members of his family : 



"Last summer," he says, "one of my grandchildren 

 found a specimen of Donax vittatus, at low water, 

 Kames Bay, Cumbrae ; the shell had the two valves 

 connected, but was empty. A month or two later 

 another specimen was found, under precisely similar 

 conditions. Although in both cases the animal was 

 absent, yet the fact that the valves were connected 

 together led me to believe that the species must be 

 living in the neighbourhood, especially as it had been 

 previously recorded from the Firth of Clyde by Mr. 

 Smith, of Jordanhill, and the Rev. Dr. Landsborough ; 

 and although their evidence had been doubted, the 

 shell is so characteristic that it could scarcely have 

 been mistaken for any other species, particularly by 

 two naturalists of so eminent a reputation. During 

 the present month (April, 1887), I am again indebted 



