I9IO- Irish Societies. 7 



which \vas covered with a layer of saud an inch and a half deep. Living 

 under these conditions it continued to be quite active for fully a fort- 

 night so that its behaviour could be readily observed. Although the 

 naked Gephyreans usually live buried in sand or mud, it might have 

 been expected that this shell-inhabiting species would have unlearnt its 

 ancestral burrowing habit on adopting the very effective defence of a 

 strong shell. But the observations made did not bear out this expecta- 

 tion. On the night of the 25th October the shell, with its tenant, was 

 left lying flat on the saud at the bottom of the bowl. Next morning the 

 shell was found completely buried. On the morning of the following 

 day the worm was detected at work The slender proboscis was seen to 

 issue rapidly from the shell and bury itself in the sand in a business-like, 

 purposeful way. Then a vigorous tug having reared the shell on its 

 broad or mouth end into a semi-erect position, it began to sway gently 

 up and down so that the wide mouth was gradually forced into the sand. 

 This action was repeated on the evening of the same day, when the shell 

 was found standing almost erect on its broad end, with one-third of its 

 length buried, two hours after it had been laid on its side. Again, on the 

 31st October, the shell being once more laid flat on the sand was found 

 after five minutes raised at an angle of about thirt}- degrees. From this 

 it gradually declined until the tip had nearly reached the sand, when a 

 vigorous pull from the buried animal dragged the shell for one-fourth of 

 Us length into the sand in an almost horizontal direction. The row of 

 of bristles at the top of the proboscis is no doubt fully expanded when the 

 animal has penetrated the sand, and serves as an anchor or purchase 

 while the shell is dragged down by a vigorous muscular contraction. 



The Sucker- fish exhibited, which was hardly an inch in length, was 

 seen on three distinct occasions between the 8th and loth November to 

 float belly upwards on the water surface in the vessel in which it had 

 been confined since its capture a fortnight previously. The action was 

 not so much a floating as a sucking on to the water surface, the tip of 

 the snout and the lower rays of the ventrals rising well above the surface, 

 while the pectorals maintained a regular motion. On the first and on 

 the second occasion, when found in this posture, the fish immediately 

 turned over and darted to the bottom on being lightly touched by the 

 finger. On the third occasion it was less sensitive, for after floating for 

 ten minutes, it suffered itself to be gently pushed acro.ss the vessel with- 

 out altering its reversed position at the surface. Gosse appears to have 

 been the first to notice this curious habit, which he describes in one of 

 his beautifully illustrated books, "A Year at the Shore," published in 

 1865, where (p. 162) he states that the fish while floating remains perfectly 

 still, and that he thinks he has only seen the practice carried on at 

 night. The specimen shown had floated indifferently by night or by day, 

 and seldom remained quite still while floating. Usually it kept revolving 

 by frequent twitchings of the tail ; on one occasion it was seen to move 

 across the water by the action of the tail and pectorals while maintaining 

 its reversed posture and suckiug on to the water surface. 



