124 MAY. 



festation of this faculty, as was first shown by Mr. 

 Crookenden, of Lewisham, in 1834, and as has since 

 been proved, with many interesting details, by Mr. A. 

 Hancock and Mr. Warington. Our Sea- Adder, which 

 is exclusively marine, was first ascertained to be a nest- 

 builder by the late Dr. George Johnston, who mentioned 

 the fact in the " Transactions of the Berwickshire Natu- 

 ralists' Club" in 1839. But the most interesting ac- 

 count is that of Mr. E. Q. Couch, who noticed the facts 

 on the coast of Cornwall, and thus records them in 

 a paper read before the Eoyal Institution of that 

 county : 



"During the summers of 1842 and 1843, while 

 searching for the naked mollusks of the county, I 

 occasionally discovered portions of sea-weed and the 

 common coralline (Corallina officinalis) hanging from 

 the rocks in pear-shaped masses, variously intermingled 

 with each other. On one occasion, having observed 

 that the mass was very curiously bound together by a 

 slender, silken-looking thread, it was torn open, and 

 the centre was found to be occupied by a mass of trans- 

 parent, amber-coloured ova, each being about the tenth 

 of an inch in diameter. Though examined on the spot 

 with a lens, nothing could be discovered to indicate 

 their character. They were, however, kept in a basin, 

 and daily supplied with sea -water, and eventually 



