70 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



this latter neighbourhood comes one of the Royal Scottish Museum examples, 

 a large female, which in October 1909 Mr A. Johnston presented, with the 

 information that it had been caught on his line while he was fishing off 

 Mallaig in Inverness-shire. In the same collection are a small male specimen 

 from North Uist, presented in 1888 by the Rev. J. Agnew, Dunbar ; and a 

 small female found in May 1907, in a crab-pot off the Point of Stoer, in 

 Sutherlandshire, and presented by the light-keeper, Mr John Mathieson, who 

 described it as previously unknown in the locality. 



The distribution of Palinurus vulgaris comprises, therefore, practically 

 all the west coast, although that it is a rare animal in the northern portions 

 is vouched for by the scarcity of records, better still by the experience of 

 observers so skilled as Professor W. C. M'Intosh and Dr Thomas Scott, 

 neither of whom found any trace of the Thorny Lobster during his stay on 

 the Outer Hebrides. 



I am aware of only two occurrences of the species on the North of 

 Scotland. To Dr W. T. Caiman I owe the information that a specimen 

 exists in the British Museum labelled " Papa Westra, Orkney, presented by 

 J. Cowan, Esq., 90.6.16.1 " ; while in May 1909, I received for identification 

 from Mr W. Wood, Stromness, a life-sized and very characteristic sketch of 

 Pulinurus vulgaris, with a descriptive note stating that the animal portrayed 

 had been found near Stromness in a lobster-creel, and was unknown to the 

 fishermen thereabouts. It is of interest to find that Canon Norman, at the 

 British Association Meeting in 1868, included this species in a list of those 

 " especially characteristic of the Fauna of the Southern portion of the British 

 Isles, which are wholly absent from the Shetland seas." l 



This rapid survey of the British distribution may be completed by a 

 glance at the records of Palinurus vulgaris from Irish seas. For the 

 references and for the still unrecorded observations made by Mr Rankin 

 and by the Fisheries Branch of the Irish Department of Agriculture and 

 Technical Instruction, I am indebted to the courtesy and kindness of 

 Mr Stanley W. Kemp of the above-mentioned department. I have already 

 quoted Bell's statement that the Thorny Lobster, while common on the south 

 coast of Ireland is sparingly known in the north. On the east are records 

 from Antrim (Larne Lough, Rankin), and from Dublin (Dalkey Sound, rare, 

 Kinahan ; 2 and Kingston and Killeney Bays, Kinahan); 3 on the south from 

 Cork (Youghal, R. Ball; ] and Cove, Humphreys); 2 on the west from Kerry 



1 A. M. Norman, Rep. Brit. Assoc, Norwich Meeting, 1 808 [1 809], p. 202. 



- .1. li. Kinahan, Nat. Hist. Review (Proc. Dublin Nat. Hist. Soc), iv., 1857, l>. 158. 



■■ .1. R. Kinahan, Brit, Ass. Rep. (Oxford Meeting), 1800 [1861], p. 31. 



