Oniithological Visit to Shetland and Orkney. 32 1 



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 

 Medusa scintillans, or the Cancer fulgens, 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 Medus<^, such as the M. pellucens of Sir 

 J. Banks, and other large animals, and only takes place when 

 the gale has already arrived, being nothing more than a con- 

 comitant, not the forerunner, 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 Richard 

 Drosier, Esq. 



Sir, 

 From the perusal of one of your interesting Numbers of 

 the Magazine of Natural History, I am induced to forward 



