140 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



A Colour Variety of the Common Eel, Anguilla australis. 

 Rich. — A rather unusual colour variety of the common eel was 

 recently presented to the National Museum by Mr. H. Quiney, 

 of Mortlake. The specimen, which measures 22 inches in length, 

 was captured at Mortlake, and resembles the ordinary typical 

 form in every respect except in colour, which is of a deep orange, 

 the head, pectoral fins, and under side being somewhat paler. 

 Though this variety is rare, it is not unique. Count de Castelnau, 

 in his notes on this eel (Proc. Zool. and Accl. Soc. Vic, vol. i., 

 p. 192), says "its colours are very changeable," and that "the 

 dorsal and anal are often in a great part yellow." There is a 

 specimen in the National Museum which was obtained so far 

 back as December, 1872, of which a coloured sketch was made, 

 which is very similar to the present specimen, though not quite 

 so uniformly yellow. — Jas. A. Kershaw, F.E.S., Curator Zool. 

 Dept. Nat. Mus. 



Australian Spiders. — At a recent meeting of the Zoological 

 Society of London, Mr. R. I. Pocock, the new superintendent of 

 the society's gardens, called attention to a remarkable habit of 

 some Australian spiders belonging to the genus Desis. These 

 spiders, he stated, live in the crevices of rocks between tide-marks 

 on the shore, and by spinning a closely woven sheet of silk over 

 the entrance, imprison a mass of air, in which they are able to 

 live during high tide. 



A.A.A.S. — The tenth congress of the Australasian Association 

 for the Advancement of Science was held at Dunedin, N.Z., 

 in January last, and was well attended both by scientists and 

 interested visitors. Unfortunately the gathering was somewhat 

 marred by wet weather. The president. Professor David, of 

 Sydney, delivered the inaugural address, in which he traced the 

 aims and ideas of the association, and spoke of the necessity for 

 more endowments for research fellowships in Australia. He 

 hoped that men who had obtained their wealth through the 

 application of science to nature would devote some of their 

 wealth to such endowments. It was decided to hold the next 

 meeting in Adelaide in September, 1906, and Professor Baldwin 

 Spencer, F.R.S., was elected president for that meeting. 



Mr. C. French, F.L.S., Government Entomologist, has recently 

 been elected a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London, 

 and also a member of the Society of Economic Entomology of 

 America. 



Commencing with the January number, increased space in 

 Knowledge will be devoted to microscopy, which will be under 

 the editorship of Mr. F. Shillington Scales, F.R.M.S., a well- 

 known writer on this subject. 



