PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OP REGENTS. 331 



right or wrong ; but if you find a good cause for it, let me know and I will 

 Adopt the plan, or any other. 



You were, in your letter of April 24th last, so kind as to say you would 

 -endeavor to forward my wish in procuring from America some living marine 

 animals for our aquarium here, and I should be glad to know what success you 

 have yet met with. Some weeks ago I sent you a letter setting forth at full 

 length my views on the transport of non-lung-breathing animals, and I trust 

 that the explanations I ventured to trouble you with may be of some service in 

 getting over difficulties. We know very little of non-European zoophytes in a 

 living state, and, as I may have told you, American sea anemones have been 

 brought over only once, though such animals from Britain have several times 

 been sent to your country and to Australia. 



I am exceedingly anxious to obtain some of your Helian thoid polypes, your 

 sea anemones and madrepores ; and no matter how common they may be with 

 you, they are sure to be interesting and valuable to me, unless it is positively 

 known beyond all doubt that they are identical with European species, and 

 even then the very fact of the identity would be of interest. So please send me 

 any. Of course you have got Gosse's "Actinotoba Britannica," 8vo, 1860. 

 It is the test-book for British Actineas and Madrepores ; and I am told that 

 Khodactinea is exactly the same as our Act. mesembry anthemone. I should 

 like to prove this. I have also heard that our Actinotoba dianthus is " very near 

 your M. marginatum," and this, too, I should like to clear up. 



Araclinactis, the only swimming anemone known, is reported to be very abund- 

 ant with you ; it finds a place in the lists of our British fauna, but I do not know 

 any one who has ever seen it, and I fear it is too small and delicate, and too near 

 in texture and habit to the Acalaphae to be brought here alive. Bisidiam and 

 Ealeampa, too, are two of j-our minute forms I should like to get. 



Our two commonest British corals, Caryophyllea and Balamphyllea, are exceed- 

 ingly hardy in transport, and if your stony corals are anything like ours the send- 

 ing them over is a matter of no great difficulty. 



We have but one really denotoid coral in Britain, Lapliohclia prolifera, and 

 its corrallam even is very rare indeed, and no British naturalist has ever seen it 

 alive. Tropical (American and other) branching corals are constantly being 

 brought to Europe by tons weight, but never once has a single living specimen 

 been imported in good health. Lately I went to much expense in trying to get 

 some from the Navigators' islands, but they all arrived without a particle of 

 fleshy matter on them. You may judge from this what a great prize I should 

 deem an Astrangia colony here in Hamburg, and this is found in abundance, 

 I believe, in Massachusetts bay. It is right to name the name of tbe man who 

 for the first and only time brought sea anemones from your country — Captain 

 H. W. Wendt. In my blazing zeal I have had his photographic portrait framed ; 

 and, common sailor though he looks, he is in my eyes a greater man than all the 

 political fellows who go raving up and down various countries. The species 

 were Phymactis flor Ida and Phymactis pluvia } £mmlguazee,'m Peru, and described 

 in Dana's great work in quarto and folio on Captain Wilkes's United States 

 exploring expedition. 



The Ecbinodermata of any kinds, hard or soft, would, I fear, not travel, but 

 I need not say how much I should value a living Echinarachinus, of which only 

 one example of one species (E. Placenta) has ever been found in Britain. With 

 you it is very common. 



Fishes from America are not to be hoped for, I am afraid, though I have got 

 two alive, (Pimclodas catus and Leneiscus pygmaeus.) But some of the Crustacea 

 might, I imagine, be got over alive; for example, Homarus Americanus. And 

 judging from it, I should imagine your edible crabs and your soldier crabs to be 

 different specifically from ours. 



But pray assist me in preventing the importation of Limulus polypJiemus 



