Ornithological Visit to Shetland and Orkney. 321 
is a presage of a storm. Not only is this assertion perfectly 
gratuitous on the part of our author, the very same observation 
having been handed down from one generation to another for 
perhaps several centuries; but it is, even, like many other 
popular opinions, founded in error, or at least upon very 
limited experience. Many a heavy gale have I encountered, 
yea, even hurricanes have swept over us while on the deep, with- 
out their having ever been so kind as to send a host of bright 
scintillators to warn us of our danger ; and had any confidence 
been placed on this vulgar opinion, and had we trusted to the 
Medisa scintillans, or the Cancer filgens, instead of our baro- 
meter or sympiesometer, instead of now addressing the Plinian 
Society, I had perhaps long ago been buried deep in the 
fathomless waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The fact of the mat- 
ter is, that very frequently these little animals seem, like many 
others of the animal kingdom, to be aware of the change of 
weather; and, instead of giving warning by their shining brighter 
at such times than they did before, they disappear altogether, 
no doubt taking refuge from the agitation of the waves by 
descending to a more secure situation deep in the water. And 
even when at times, as it no doubt occasionally does happen, 
the sea in bad weather is particularly luminous, it is evidently 
produced by large Medusa, such as the M. pellicens of Sir 
J. Banks, and other lar ge animals, and only takes place when 
the gale has already arrived, being nothing more than a con- 
comitant, not the fonciiher of an agitated sea. From my 
own observations upon this subject, were I to say that it is at 
all connected with meteorological appearances, I should be 
disposed to believe that it is more brilliant and more gene- 
rally diffused over the surface of the water, immediately before 
or during very light rain, not absolutely during a calm, but 
when there is only a gentle breeze at the time. I have fre- 
quently observed at such times the sea particularly luminous, 
and have also heard it remarked by seamen as a forerunner 
of rain. This, however, like every other prognostic, fre- 
quently fails, only showing how little all such prognostics are 
to be attended to. 
Park Street, Edinburgh, July 14, 1829. 
Art. III. Account of an Ornithological Visit to the Islands of 
Shetland and Orkney, in the Summer of 1828. By Ricuarp 
Drosier, Esq. 
Sir, 
From the perusal of one of your interesting Numbers of 
the Magazine of Natural History, I am induced to forward 
