109 
Higgins, of Liverpool, found one of these spines in clay 
under a bed of peat at Leasowes, on the banks of the river 
Dee. So far it may have lived in English rivers at more 
remote times. 
In 1828 a fish was caught in a river at Florence Court, 
Ireland, which was satisfactorily proved a long time after- 
wards by the Earl Enniskillen and Professor Louis Agassiz 
to be a Silurus glanis — not a fragment of the fish or its 
skeleton was preserved, which was unfortunate, as its 
identification depended upon memory alone and its re- 
semblence to a drawing of Silurus. 
Dr. Fleming notices a remark by Sibbald, that the Silurus 
may have been seen in the Scotch rivers in his day. 
The author then stated : “ Several years ago I received a 
letter from a gentleman residing in the highlands of Ross 
describing an extraordinary monster which had been 
occasionally seen by his servants and tenants floating on 
the waters of Loch Bad-a-Luacradh—~Lake of the Rushes— 
near the coast about Loch Eu. The people called the monster 
a Snail Whale; it seemed about 22 feet in length, and had 
two flexible horns on its mouth ; it was fond of basking on 
the surface of the water, particularly after great storms, and 
looked very much like a herring boat turned keel upwards. 
In reply I sent a drawing and description of Silurus 
glanis, which was at once recognised by all the people 
who had seen the big monster as a capital portrait of it. 
Efforts were repeatedly taken to capture the monster by 
nets, by baiting, and by shooting, but without success, and for 
three winters similar endeavours to capture it equally failed. 
It was ascertained by strict inquiry amongst the native 
residents, that the fish had been seen as far back as sixty 
years ago, when it was much smaller. An old shepherd 
had seen it first, a very old dame saw it thirty years ago, a 
smuggler or illicit whiskey distiller who had a bothy hard 
by the loch often saw the monster in the quiet hours of 
