CAPTURE OP THE LANCELET. 29 



air could bear them on their course; whilst their cry re-echoed far and wide, 

 as we disturbed them from their resting-places; nought else but the measured 

 stroke of our oars broke the stillness of the scene. We landed at the small 

 unfinished harbour on the west side of the island, and soon walked across to 

 the above beach, with all the requisites for a shell-hunting excursion. This 

 beach, from high-water mark to about half-tide, is composed of one mass of 

 shells to a considerable depth; not, of course, of the larger perfect shells, but 

 of minute perfect shells, and fragments of the larger ones, with little or no 

 sand intermixed with them. Below half-tide the sand commences, and extends 

 a long way out to sea. As the tide gradually ebbed, 1 followed it down to 

 its lowest ripple, picking up many varieties of shells on my way, (a list of 

 some of the rarer ones I will hereafter give,) when the struggling of a small 

 fish at the edge of the water attracted my attention. At first I supposed it 

 to be a small specimen of the Ammodytes lancea, or the Tohianus lancea, 

 both of which fish abound on this coast. As there appeared to be something 

 about it different from what I had observed in the others, I put it into a wide- 

 mouthed bottle, with sand and sea-water; and when I reached home, found that 

 it was not the Sand Lance, but the Amphioxiis lanceolutus; a description of 

 which may interest some of your readers: — 



The form of this little fish is compressed, smooth, and without scales 

 resembling somewhat the Sand Lance in colour; in length, nearly two inches* 

 from the nose extending round the extremity of the tail, and terminating at 

 the vent, is a delicate membranous dorsal fin: I could not trace the position 

 of the eyes. Yarrell, in his excellent work on British Fishes, says, in his 

 description of this fish, "The head, pointed, without any trace of eyes;" but 

 when I entered the room in which I kept it, at night, with a lighted candle 

 it would dart in and out of the sand, evincing great uneasiness, and signs 

 of fear, evidently shewing sensibility to light; therefore, I imagine it had 

 the powers of vision. The nose rather protruded, the mouth on the under 

 edge, narrow, elongated, and each lateral margin of it furnished with a row of 

 slender filaments, regularly disposed. The anal aperture is situated one-fourth 

 of the whole length of the fish in advance of the tail. 



The body is strengthened by a flexible cartilaginous column, from which the 

 numerous muscles diverge; and are arranged in regular order along the side 

 of the body, diverging from a central line; one series passing obliquely upward 

 and backward, the other series obliquely downwards and backwards. The 

 cavity of the abdomen is large; the intestine, a canal of considerable calibre, 

 without convolution; above is a row of flattened globules, which have the 

 appearance of ova : it was so transparent that the viscera were_ plainly visible 

 through. I kept this little fish in a glass bowl for several weeks, alive, 

 giving it fresh sea-water nearly every day; thus afibrding me an opportunity 

 of making drawings, and watching its habits narrowly, until my cat put an 

 end to its existence, much to my vexation and disappointment. 



It was particularly active, swimming round the bowl and darting in and 



