DECEMBER 229 



were full of rooks, blown from their roosts and drowned ; 

 the gardeners at Castle Kennedy collected more than 

 500 corpses out of the lake there, and for days after- 

 wards the woods were full of dead and cripples, the 

 latter having been dashed against the swaying branches 

 and their wings broken. 



But the most remarkable evidence of the force of the 

 wind when the gale was at its height was shown on the 

 beach the following day. A schooner was blown ashore 

 just opposite our house, and some of us went down to 

 see the wreck. The tide-line on the lee shore of Luce 

 Bay was piled with masses of sea-ware, mingled with 

 the dead cod and flat-fish, countless starfish, thousands 

 of crabs, with chaffinches and other small land birds 

 blown from the other side of the bay, twelve miles 

 distant. All these may be seen after an unusually 

 heavy gale, but, long as I have lived by the sea, I never 

 before saw the bodies of lobsters among the slain. Of 

 these, on this occasion, we picked up as many as we could 

 carry, lying quite dead in the extent of not more than 

 two hundred yards of beach. We took them home and 

 proved their excellence on the table ; disproving at the 

 same time the cruel tradition that lobsters, in order to 

 take a fine scarlet when cooked, must be boiled alive. 

 These lobsters were gathered after death, though still 

 black, but when boiled they were as bright red as any 

 that ever graced a ball supper. The only thing that 

 preserved us from utter destruction in this gale, was, 

 that it blew at its height for less than three-quarters of 

 an hour. The destructive character of its predecessor 



