872 OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS 



kusen 1 , the procuring- of living- Malapterurus in Cairo is attended 

 with extraordinary difficulties, which are caused by the restrictions 

 to which the sale of fish in Bulak is subject in consequence 

 of taxation. 



Thus the investigation came to a standstill in Egypt at the 

 moment when it acquired the greatest interest, by the discovery 

 of a connexion between the arrangement of the nerves and the 

 direction of the discharge in the electrical organ, having been 

 brought within view. But unexpectedly, the way was made plain 

 for its prosecution from another quarter. 



2. Living Malapterurus at Berlin. How they may be kept. 



As early as 1 855* Scotch missionaries sent some specimens of the 

 Malapterurus in spirits to Edinburgh from Creek Town, a settle- 

 ment situated about 90 kil. up the Old Calabar River. Mr. Andrew 

 Murray thought that he recognised in them a new kind, which he 

 named 2 Malapterurus Ben'mensis, after the Bay of Benin into which 

 the Old Calabar river empties itself. In the summer of 1857, Mrs. 

 Anderson, the wife of one of the missionaries, undertook to bring 

 three living Malapterurus from Creek Town to Edinburgh, and 

 carried out her project successfully in spite of shipwreck suffered on 

 the way. In Edinburgh the fish came into Prof. Goodsir's hands, 

 who was on the point of travelling to Berlin. He was so very 

 obliging as to bring one of them with him, and as he saw that 

 I was ready to devote myself to the subject, he had the other two 

 sent subsequently. 



This took place in August 1857, On a former occasion I de- 

 scribed the arrangements which I made, in order to preserve the fish 

 in life and health. It would be useless to repeat this description, as 

 the same difficulties will not occur again. Besides, at first, my 

 exertions were not very successful. Only one of the three fish lived 

 until January of the following year. I will, however, give the 

 method which I finally adopted for the preservation of malapterurus, 

 as they may possibly be useful. 



In the summer of 1858, I received three from Goodsir and my 

 friend Dr. Bence Jones of London 3 , but one of them died very 



1 Bulletin physico-mathe'matique de 1' Academic de St. Petersburg, t. xii. 1854, 

 p. 203. 



2 The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, New Series, 1855, vol. ii. pp. 49, 

 379 ; vol. iii. p. 188 ; Report of the British Association, etc., 1855. Transactions of 

 the Sections, p. 114. 



8 They belonged indeed to the same consignment. Bence Jones sent two from 



