On the Rise of the Shores of the Firth of Forth. 297 



a dead shell in it one foot above the present limit of Pholas 

 life. But perhaps they may urge that the Lithodomi were 

 introduced by the Romans. Until this proof is produced all 

 their other arguments are futile. 



Another argument against this theory, and I have done. 

 The Rev. William Nimmo, minister of Bothkennar, in his 

 " General History of Stirlingshire," published in 1787, thus 

 describes the Roman road near Stirling : — 



" The peculiar form and regular dimensions, together with 

 the straight course, easily distinguish it from other cause- 

 ways. Nearer to the Drip, too, its foundations have been 

 lately digged up. The ford hath a firm and solid bottom, 

 and during the summer season little above two feet of water. 

 There was no occasion for a bridge to transport the hardy 

 sons of Rome, whom much more stately rivers did not 

 intimidate from their darling project of subduing and 

 plundering the world." 



If, then, this ford, as described by Nimmo, was only two 

 feet under water in 1787, and the land had risen 25 feet, 

 surely the legs of the horses used by the Romans must have 

 been unusually long. This ford is still in use, and I hope 

 will be a lasting testimony of the folly of believing that any 

 rise has taken place on the shores of the Forth within the 

 human period. 



II. Remarks on the assumption of Male Plumage hy the Hen of the 

 Domestic Fowl. By William Turner, M.B., F.R.S.E. 



The specimen shown by the author to the Society fur- 

 nished an excellent illustration of the change in external 

 characters which female birds of the gallinaceous order 

 sometimes exhibit. It was a bantam hen, and was sent to 

 the author by Dr Alexander Dickson of Hartree, and will 

 be deposited in the Anatomical Museum of the University. 

 The bird was thirteen years old at the time of death, four or 

 five years before which it had ceased to lay eggs. About a 

 year before death the bird began to assume the external 

 characters of the male, which were best marked in the 

 plumage, more especially in the form of the tail-feathers, 



