234 



them. By telling him to put a trepang into a bucket ol 

 sea water upon being freshly caught, I further managed 

 to have a living trepang with a living parasitic fish. This 

 last I opened and I found therein two fish , wliich , being 

 replaced in the bucket, swam about with great liveliness. 

 This was on a Saturday forenoon. 



I next procured a freshly caught trepang and left it and tlie 

 two fish torether in the vessel of salt water. Almost im- 

 mediately one of the fish approached the mouth of the tre- 

 pang as if examining it, hut speedily moved away again. 

 'The three remained together that night, and next morning 

 (Sundav) I found one of the fish dead, the other quitc 

 lively. The dead one had unfortunately been wounded 

 by the scalpel in opening the trepang; not expecting to 

 see two fish, I was not so careful as I ought to have been. 

 On Sunday forenoon the remaining fish entered the trepang, 

 insertinp the tail first, as far as I can understand at least; 

 it was seen and reported to me by my servant, a china-boy. 



Repardino^ the precise mode of its entrance I will not 

 in this account be positive. Nevertheless as I saw it 

 had entered, which was indeed the result I had anticipated, 

 I now wished to see what foliowed. In a short time 

 the trepang gave evident signs of uneasiness, taking in 

 and forcibly ejecting again large quantities of water, striving 

 Isupposed, in this manner to expel the fish, hut it kept 

 • place. In its further endeavours to get rid of the in- 

 truder, the trepang extruded a portion of its respiratory 

 and reproductory organs and finally nearly all of the intes- 

 tinal canal. (This extrusion of sucli a large quantity of 

 the viscera is I believe not an uncommon occurrence in 

 the Holothuriae, when suffering under any great irrita- 

 tion and it seems that the whole of its complex arrange- 

 ment of respiratory, reproductivc and digestive apparatus 

 is capable of being regenerated) . None of these effbrts avai- 

 led'to dislodge the fish, it remained at perfect ease, now 

 and again protruding its head out of the aperture of the 



