88 NATURAL HISTORY. 



perfieial ; that the adult Ascidians show no trace whatever of such 

 affinity; and that as things now stand, an amateur naturalist, may- 

 most safely assume the Amphioxus or Lancelet fish of the 

 Mediterranean to be the lowest known vertebrate. I think it 

 possible that the little transparent fish, mentioned at the end of my 

 last paper, will be found to represent the Lancelet here. But I am 

 sure that it will supply no missing link, having bright and 

 distinct eyes, whereas those of Amphioxus are rudimentary, or 

 little better. 



I have received and sent in to our Museum a few creatures that 

 I took for Salpce. 



Of the Polyzoa, I have sent in several specimens of at least two 

 forms of F lust?' a (Sea-mats, or Sand-corals) : these abound on the 

 coast; they are very beautiful, and abominably brittle. Their 

 growth is extremely rapid under favourable circumstances. We 

 have in our Museum one very large specimen. It is (I write 

 under correction, as the thing is very brittle ; and goes on diminish- 

 ing every time it is moved) over 18 inches long, 15 wide, and 

 8 deep. 



This grew on an iron buoy that I scraped and painted (partly 

 with my own hand) and sent to sea at the end of September 1885. 

 The buoy was landed in May 1886, and the men who did that job 

 preserved for me the F lustra, which was therefore of under 8 

 months* growth. 



Of the aquatic insects little can be said here. The entomologists 

 justly claim a monopoly of their extremely intricate subject; and 

 any one else touches it at his' peril. I have already noted that 

 certain water baetles are food for crocodiles, and every one knows 

 the great water beetles that fly against the lamps of the Byculla 

 Club, and look " as big as sparrows.'* As I write, a small bright 

 green species lies in heaps, like pebbles, on the banks of a tank 

 before the tents ; and for some reason is untouched by the numerous 

 crows and other birds feeding about. Certain beautiful tiger 

 beetles haunt the sands, and a species (apparently) of beetle skims 

 the surface of the sea in calms, like the '* water boatmen" (ho- 

 tonecta) of English fresh-waters (which, however is not a beetle). 

 During the height of the South-west monsoon, the life-boats 

 cruising off the coast see coloured butterflies at sea. But whether 

 they come from Africa, or Madagascar, or the Mauritius, no man 

 knows. This much is certain, that they appear very much at home 



