cHap. xiv.] Lishes the Best Dredgers. 258 
species that were beyond the power of the dredge, and that 
never entered the traps set by him along shore. They were 
not, however, beyond the power of the elements, But for 
the tempest, that tears them from the rocks and dashes 
them on shore, such objects would never have been found. 
Whenever a storm occurred in the Moray Firth, Edward 
immediately went out, collected the tangle which had been 
driven in, cut off as many roots as he could carry with him, 
and carefully examined them at home. 
He was also greatly helped by the fishes themselves, as 
well as by the fishermen. It is true that he had no dredge 
and no boat. But big fish were themselves the best of all 
dredgers. They fed far out at sea, at a depth where the 
dredge could scarcely reach. The fishermen caught them, 
and brought them into port, full of what they had swallow- 
ed. Edward therefore endeavored to obtain the contents 
of their stomachs. For this purpose he sent some of his 
daughters to the neighboring fishing villages. They went 
to Macduff and Whitehills twice a week, and to the Banff 
fishermen daily. The object of their visits was to search 
the fishermen’s lines, to bring away the sea-weed and all the 
stuff that was attached to them, and to secure as many of 
the fish stomachs as they could find. One of his daughters 
was sent to Gardenstown, where she lived with a friend. 
From thence she sent home her collection of fish stomachs 
twice a week by the carrier. All this rubbish (as most 
people called it) was carefully examined by Edward. From 
these searchings he obtained most of his rarest crustaceans. 
“Tt is quite wonderful,” he says, “ what is to be got in this 
way. Indeed, no one would believe it who has not made 
the experiment.” 
Take, for instance, the cod’s bill of fare. ‘It is to the 
stomach of this species,” says Edward, “that I am most in- 
debted for many of the rarest of the testaceous and crusta- 
ceous specimens that I possess. I will only mention what 
T have myself seen: crabs and lobsters of almost every de- 
