8 Proceedings of the Bayed Physical Society. 



to the study of natural history, and much delighted with such 

 physical curiosities as were most extraordinary and surprising." 

 He expected in natural science a wonderland, and he made it 

 so. Facts were of no value to him, if they linked not them- 

 selves on to the weird fancies, in which superstition has its 

 root, and on which it lives and grows. I need not dwell on his 

 record of marvels — his beast which in 1510 emerged from an 

 Argyleshire pool, the size of a greyhound and footed like a 

 gander ; his otter which could strike down trees with its tail ; 

 his sea-monks, which abounded in the waters around the Bass, 

 but which never appear except as heralds of a great pestilence ; 

 his golden mountain in Garioth, with its sheep whose fleeces 

 and teeth were like to burnished gold ; or his " claick geese," 

 which seasonally were evolved from barnacles. He even gives 

 instances, quite satisfactory to all who take assertion for proof. 

 Nor need one wonder at this, in view of the imaginary forms 

 which some recent speculatists have thrust in to fill up gaps in 

 the theoretical genesis and genealogy of our higher vertebrates. 

 Nevertheless, " Boece His Story and Chronicle" claims our re- 

 gard, both because of its references to well-known forms, and 

 because it not unfrequently throws out hints well fitted to 

 make present students stop and consider. I give an example 

 in Bellenden's words : " Of fische is mair plente in Scotland, 

 speciallie of salmond, than is in ony other partis of the warld. 

 And because the procreation and nature of salmond is un- 

 couth and strange, we have inscrit the maner thairof in this 

 buke. . . . And after thair spawning thay grow sa lene 

 and small that na thing appeirs on thaim bot skin and bane, 

 and has sa warsche grist that thay ar unprof&table to eit. 

 Sum men says all other salmond that metis thaym grous lene 

 on the same maner as thay ar. For sundrie of thaym are 

 found lene on the ta syde and fat on the tother." Does this 

 last remark point to the infectious presence of Saprolegnia 

 ferox in those early days ? Be this as it may, in almost every 

 dozen of infected fish you may find one " lene on ta syde and 

 fat on tother." In addition to information of this kind, the 

 student of his works meets with evidences of the " mens 

 clivinior " — the poetic spirit, which some affirm to be a charac- 

 teristic of all true naturalists ! Eeferring to the pearl mussel 



