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. Bj 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 CoralUna officitialis. 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 CoralUna, 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 difi*erent 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- 
rnatula 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 
