SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



325 



from chemists ready-made and are known as 

 medicine droppers. 



It will be found by spending a few hours collecting 

 as above described that sufficient material has been 

 obtained to keep anyone well employed for months 

 in examining the desmids. It has been a matter of 

 great astonishment to find what a large number of 

 different species may be obtained from a neigh- 

 bourhood usually undreamt of as being so prolific. 

 Many of the types are very beautiful and can only be 

 seen with quarter-inch or one-sixth-inch objectives. 



If after some time any of the tubes show signs of 

 becoming stagnant, all that is usually necessary is 

 to aerate them by means of the pipette. Put the 

 instrument down to the bottom of tube and 

 compress the ball several times, being careful not 

 to use too much force or you may discharge 

 the contents into your face. This, of course, 

 disturbs the desmids that may have been grow- 

 ing, but that does not matter, as when all becomes, 

 settled again the desmids will soon come to the top 

 3, Keiy Street, PoUokshields, Glasgow. 



TIDE-WAIFS ON THE FORTH SHORES. 



By Robert Godfrey. 



I 



'T^HE shore has ever been one of the chief 

 hunting-grounds of the naturalist, and in 

 spite of the care bestowed upon it by those in quest 

 of its spoils it has still new secrets to show them 

 at subsequent visits. Though at all times attrac- 

 tive the shore is especially interesting after a 

 storm, as then it bears on its open face the relics 

 of wind and tide, and affords us opportunities of 

 examining at close quarters objects which during 

 the calm are kept beyond our gaze. All classes of 

 life suffer from a continuance of heavy storms, but 

 the lower forms, as is to be expected, chiefly fall 

 victims to the violence of the gale. Every gale 

 carries destruction with it, and according to its 

 intensity leaves more or less evident traces of its 

 passing. Sometimes a storm will strew our fore- 

 shore with a compact mass of medusae, forming a 

 continuous line for a mile or more along high- 

 water mark, or at other times a terrific gale will 

 throw up superabundance of molluscs of many 

 species, starfishes, and such like. The effects of 

 storms on invertebrate life is immediate, so that the 

 reason for the destruction is generally self-evident. 

 Our object at present, however, is to consider 

 some of the vertebrate forms of life found dead on 

 the Forth shores after storms: At such times a 

 sure find, especially on the West Lothian fore- 

 shore, is the angler-fish (Lophius), and very often 

 this is the only vertebrate to be found as a waif 

 immediately after a storm. Several of these un- 

 wieldy-looking fish are often cast up at one time, 

 and that they are the direct product of the storm is 

 proved by their well-nurtured condition and by 

 the presence of food in their stomachs. Lophius 

 varies in length from fifteen to forty-eight inches, 

 the average size of those thrown up being three 

 feet. It is a formidable-looking monster from its 

 flattened shape and broad mouth, the lower jaw of 

 which protrudes far in front of the upper — as 

 also its projecting spikes and ridges above the 

 skull. Its curious guise is enhanced by the tiny 

 fin-ray-like appendages that spring from the dorsal 



line, and by the rows of papillae round the edge of 

 the lower jaw and along its sides. These fin-ray- 

 like appendages, or " fishing-rods," are six in 

 number, situated on the dorsal line between the 

 upper jaw and the pectoral fins ; two lie in front 

 of the eye region, one behind it, and three between 

 the pectorals ; they are elongated and covered with 

 skin, and flexible at their bases. The " fishing- 

 rods " are reputed to be employed by the angler-fish 

 as he lies sluggishly on the sea-bottom in enticing 

 smaller fish to approach, when they at once fall 

 victims to his enormous jaws. The papillae referred 

 to may help to hide the angler more completely by 

 their resembling tiny fronds waving all round the 

 edge of his lower jaw. But this question of wilful 

 trapping on the angler's part is a difficult one to 

 handle, and may easily be stretched beyond the 

 actual facts. 



Besides the angler, conger and saithe are occa- 

 sionally thrown up ; but no fish has sufi'ered such 

 destruction in our area as the saury-pike. This 

 rare fish, when it does appear in the Forth, comes 

 in enormous shoals, and has on at least two 

 different occasions been destroyed in almost in- 

 credible numbers. In November, 176S (i), great 

 numbers of saury-pike were thrown ashore on the 

 sands at Leith, after a great storm from the east ; 

 and again, in 1S55 (-j, after an east or north-east 

 wind, they swarmed in the Forth. Some idea of 

 their numbers may be obtained from the following 

 account given in the " Alloa Advertiser " of the 

 time: " On the afternoon of Monday (29th 

 October), but especially on Tuesday, and partially 

 on Wednesday (31st), vast shoals of fish of the 

 genus Scombrcsox, technically known by the name 

 of saury-pike, ascended the river Forth, and were 

 gladly welcomed by the citizens of Alloa, more 

 especially by the humbler classes of the com- 

 munity. The Forth, betwixt Kincardine and Alloa, 

 during the days above-mentioned (particularly 



(1) Pennant. 



(2) Proc. Royal Phys. Soc, Edin. i., p. 51. 



