THE JELLY-FISH. 339 



a summer storm we have seen the sea-beach covered with a con- 

 siderable wall of jelly-fish that had been cast ashore, a yard in 

 breadth, perhaps, and a couple of feet in height ; and before the 

 evening of the next day, during which the sun shone out hot and 

 clear, the whole had melted away like so much snow, leaving only a 

 thin film of gelatinous matter, which, if gathered together in a 

 single heap, wouldn't have filled our venerable but still useful 

 " Glachnacuddin " hat. There is a good story told of a farmer, 

 somewhere from the altitudes of Druimuachdar, who took some 

 land by the sea, not a hundred yards from our own neighbourhood. 

 One morning he saw the beach covered with a deep ring of jelly- 

 fish as above, and being an eident body, he got his horses and carts 

 in order, and commenced to cart them afield, in the belief that they 

 could not but prove excellent manure for the land. After working 

 at the job nearly half a day, a naturalist, who chanced to pass the 

 way, astonished the farmer not a little by assuring him that some 

 hogsheads of sea-water, and a single •pocket-handkerchief full of 

 manure from the nearest dung-heap, would fitly and fully represent 

 all that he had on his land in the fifty odd carts of jelly-fish that 

 had cost him so much labour ! The story goes on to say that that 

 particular farmer looked askance at jelly-fish ever afterwards, and 

 didn't care much to have their natural history discussed in his presence 

 at kirk or market, at bridal or funeral, all his life long. The fact is, 

 that a mass of jelly-fish sufficient to load the " Great Eastern " 

 wouldn't probably yield a peat creelful of solid serviceable matter 

 for any purpose or purposes whatever. The jelly-fish is known to the 

 Gaels of the Hebrides and West Coast by a curious name — Sgeith 

 an Roin for the smaller ones, that is, the seal's vomit, and for the 

 larger ones, Sgeith na Muicamara, the whale's vomit, in the absurd 

 belief that they were the vomits respectively of the uncanny Sealchs, 

 of whom the Highlander had always a superstitious dread, and of 

 the largest of marine monsters, after they had gorged themselves 



