288 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



butter, soap, a grinding-stone, etc., were stolen by some 

 Grimsby fishermen, who have since been apprehended. These 

 articles were all upon the island at the time of our visit in 

 June, and there seemed to be considerable honourable feeling 

 even amongst the proprietors against touching the dead men's 

 effects. The Grimsby men were apprehended in their own 

 homes in Grimbsy, taken prisoners to Stornoway, where they 

 were tried before the Sheriff, and sentenced to imprisonment 

 — the crew to two months and the master to eight months. 

 The theft was committed about the end of June, and must 

 have been done within a very short time of the date of our 

 visit in the " Eunice." Another theft of four sheep was 

 committed whilst Malcolm MacDonald and Murdoch Mackay 

 were alive, as reported by them to their friends in August 

 1884, They could not read the name of the boat, though 

 there was a name on the stern. When in Great Grimsby in 

 December last, the writer of this paper had an interview 

 with a smack owner, in whose employment two of the men 

 apprehended had once been. 



The Great Grey Seal (Halichcerus gryphus) is abundant on 

 the outlying skerries and lower shores of Eona, and as we 

 approached the island numbers of these animals were seen 

 somewhat in the locality indicated in our sketch. We 

 heard sundry accounts of the numbers of these animals 

 obtained on Eona by the fishermen of Ness, who go annually 

 for their capture; but what with the imperfect English of 

 our guide, and consequent misinterpretation by ourselves, 

 we formed what must have been an exaggerated estimate of 

 their numbers, if we take the more carefully collected data 

 furnished as follows by Mr E. M. Barrington, who, however, 

 also mentions the difficulties which are in the way of obtain- 

 ing precise statistics of the annual slaughter of the seals. 

 Mr Barrington writes — " The seal statistics are most unsatis- 

 factory. I asked the men who went there separately ; then 

 I asked John Morrison, to whom all the Ness skins are said 

 to be sold ; then I asked Anderson of Stornoway, the third 

 party through whose hands the skins and blubber pass ; and 

 not two of them agreed. Anderson gets them from Morrison, 

 and Morrison "ets them from the Ness fishermen. The Ness 



