86 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



subject, but advised us to wait patiently, and time might clear 

 up the mystery. We would have rejoiced had he lived to 

 learn the simple explanation only obtained a few months ago. 

 The Board of Fisheries some years since took it into their 

 heads that garvies were young herrings, and passed an act 

 forbidding nets to be used the meshes of which were smaller 

 than those employed in catching full-grown herrings. The 

 officers of the Board happening to detect a boat using the 

 illicit nets just off Inch Mickery, they, according to statute, 

 took the offending nets to this rocky knoll and burned them. 

 The leaden sinkers attached to the nets supplied my meteoric 

 lead, and the twine yielded sufficient fuel to fuse it. 



V. Notes on some points in the Natural History of the West Coast of 

 Ross-shire. By John Alex. Stewart, Esq., Lochcarron. 



The first part of this paper was occupied with an inquiry into 

 the food and some points of the natural history of the limpet. 

 Besides the common species, Patella vulgata. Mr Stewart had 

 detected the finer species, P. athletica (which had hitherto 

 been chiefly found in the southern coasts of Britain), in 

 great abundance upon the coasts of Boss-shire and Skye. He 

 satisfactorily proved that the food of the common limpet 

 was not confined to sea-weeds, as was generally supposed, 

 but that it also fed upon Balani ; and that the chief food 

 of the P. athletica was the Corallina officinalis. Wher- 

 ever that plant was in abundance, there Athletica was to be 

 found ; and it was not confined to the low-water zone, as it is 

 said to be in the south of England. Mr Stewart described 

 the process of feeding on the Balani and Corallina, and ex- 

 hibited specimens of the half-digested remains taken from their 

 stomachs. Mr Stewart also exhibited and described a species 

 of Comatula, which he considered different from the common 

 C. rosacea. He had, however, been anticipated in this disco- 

 very, Mr Barrett having published this species in the " An- 

 nals of Natural History," in 1857, under the name of Com- 

 matula Woodwardii. Mr Stewart farther exhibited a mag- 

 nificent Ophiura, new to Britain, which he had discovered in . 

 the same locality. It was 24 inches across, and differed mate- 

 rially from any even of the genera of this family hitherto found 



