G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 229 



to be placed in a three-ounce vial, and closed with a wax 

 cork. The diatoms are to be immersed in this for a suitable 

 length of time, and subsequently washed out with clean 

 water. 



COCCOLITHS OF VEGETABLE, NOT ANIMAL ORIGIN. 



The question of how the lowest forms of animal life which 

 abound in the deep sea obtain their food where no vegetable 

 life is present has long presented great difficulties to natural- 

 ists. Mr. H. J. Carter, in a paper in the " Annals and Maga- 

 zine of Natural History," cuts the Gordian knot by the hy- 

 pothesis that the coccoliths and coccospheres found in such 

 enormous numbers in deep-sea dredgings, and recently iden- 

 tified by Giimbel and others as entering largely into the com- 

 position of some very ancient rocks, are not, as held by Pro- 

 fessor Huxley and others, animals of low organization, but 

 are referable in fact to the vegetable kingdom. His conclu- 

 sion has not, however, been generally accepted by natural- 

 ists. 



HERMIT CRABS CLIMBING TREES. 



Most of our readers accustomed to the sea are familiar with 

 the so-called hermit crabs, and their habit of taking possession 

 of dead univalve shells, into which they retreat w 7 hen dis- 

 turbed, and which they carry around with them from place 

 to place. In the United States these crabs are seldom of 

 large size, on our Northern coast the largest finding their 

 homes in the winkle or Pyrula ; but in the East Indies they 

 occupy still larger abodes, and are said to be in the habit of 

 climbing stunted trees and devouring the eggs and young of 

 the gannets and frigate pelicans. 2 A, 1870, August 10, 133. 



EOZOON NOT OF ORGANIC CHARACTER. ' 



In a communication to ]atit?'e, Mr. John B. Perry, of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, ranges him- 

 self among the number of those who oppose the theory of 

 the organic origin of the Eozoon ccmade?ise, as maintained by 

 Dr. William B. Carpenter, Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, etc. In 

 reference to the so-called eozoon limestone in Chelmsford, 

 Massachusetts, Mr. Perry states that this is not a sedimenta- 

 ry rock, but that it occupied pockets or oven-shaped cavities 



