WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND. 99 



to 32 p . My belief is that in October and April the tempera- 

 ture is uniform all over the Firth, and from April till 

 October it is higher at Alloa than at the Isle of May, the 

 difference attaining a maximum between July and August. 

 From October to April it is lower at Alloa than at the May, the 

 difference attaining a maximum about the end of the year. The 

 maximum difference between the two places will be about 10° or 

 12°, giving a rate of change of 0° 2' per mile." Suspended 

 matter taken in ten samples at Kincardine on Forth varied from 

 5 to 20 grains per gallon, averaging about 10 grains. 



Note. — It was at Kincardine on Forth, the narrowest part of 

 the Firth, between Alloa and Borrowstoness, that the greatest 

 quantities of sprats were taken. 



I personally visited Kincardine several times both in 1872-3 

 and 1884-5, and witnessed the extraordinary congregation of 

 Gulls and the myriads of sprats. In 1884-5 one smack anchored 

 off the pier at Kincardine took 16 tons of garvies (or sprats) 

 during one tide. There were, in all, some twenty smacks all lying 

 anchored at this narrow part of the Firth, but all of these were 

 not fishing with the small meshed nets ; some for herrings only. 

 Hundreds of tons were sold at from 14s. to, latterly, 8s. a ton, and 

 were spread over the adjoining farm lands for manure. Hundreds 

 of tons more were sold for making up a compost manure — being 

 in themselves considered too rich in phosphates — to a firm in 

 Alloa. Hundreds of tons more besprinkled the mud-flats at low 

 tide, or hung by their gills in festoons along the tangle covered 

 timbers of the piers. The water itself was alive with them, and 

 every wave that broke on the lower piers left the piers covered 

 with glittering garvies. A man with a minnow landing-net 

 could have caught an indefinite number by sweeping each wave 

 as it came in. 



Mr. J. T. Cunninghame, of the Scottish Marine Zoological 

 Station, Granton, in reply to inquiries, tells me that " his notes 

 dating 28th Nov. show that Copepods were very numerous and 

 varied in the Firth of Forth, as were also Molluscan larvae. The 

 temperatures of the water, as will be seen by Mr. Milne's notes 

 in December and January, 1885, were lower than at any other 

 time of the year being (38) and 35 near Alloa (and Kincardine) 

 as compared with 41 and 39 at Queensferry, and 44 and 43 at 

 Isle of May. By the 17th Nov., as is recorded in our Migration 



