Miscellaneous. 185 
than the diameter of the column, and are coloured brown with pale 
rings: 2nd, short filiform tentacles, about twenty-five in number, ar- 
ranged in two or three irregular circles round the mouth, coloured a 
uniform brown; these labial tentacles hardly equal in length the 
radius of the disk. 
Only one specimen of this interesting animal has fallen in my way. 
When first brought to me, its appearance was that of a mass of dirt 
which had a certain convoluted shape, and out of which protruded 
at one place a reddish semitransparent body (the base), and at another 
some tentacles, which partly folded up on being touched. At first 
sight I took the animal for an Annelid; but during the night it shuffled 
off its muddy coating and displayed itself in its true character. It 
was then seen to have a length of about 25 inches, with a diameter of 
about a quarter of aninch. The column was quite smooth, cylindrical, 
and of a brown colour approaching to auburn or chestnut. When 
examined with a lens, some fine longitudinal lines were perceived, 
dividing the body at regular intervals, and being about +45 of an inch 
apart. Faint angular transverse lines were also visible, pretty closely 
set. It seemed shy, and never expanded its tentacles completely, 
except in the dark, when it contracted them if the light of a candle 
fell upon it. The power of fully withdrawing them seemed to be 
wanting. They were more than an inch in length when entirely dis- 
played. The next day I perceived it lying in the angle at the bottom 
of the glass containing sea-water, enveloped in a glaucous semitrans- 
parent film of mucus looking like a stout spider’s web, in which it 
moved as a worm moves in its case. It had expanded to a length of 
4} inches, but on being touched immediately contracted so as to 
measure only 1? inch. It possessed the power of swelling out portions 
of the column; sometimes the swelling appeared near the middle of 
the body ; sometimes near the base. On some occasions it lay with 
the lower part of the body bent into a hook ; at others it quitted the 
protection of its tube and floated at the surface of the water. The 
animal was never observed to wriggle or glide through the water like 
a worm; all its motions were extremely slow. It was captured at 
the bottom of a pool in the rocks near Funchal. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Note on Physa acuta (Draparnaud). 
By the Rev. ALFRED Mere Norman, M.A. 
To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 
GENTLEMEN,—In February last I described in your Journal the 
well-known European Mollusk, Physa acuta (Draparnaud) as having 
been met with in our Islands. It was mentioned in my paper that 
the species had been found in a tank at Kew Gardens, and also in 
‘a ditch in the immediate vicinity of London.” This last locality 
was a “brook near the Hampton Wick entrance to Bushy Park ;” 
and the species was presumed by Mr. Choules to have been intro- 
duced from this habitat, along with water-plants, into Kew Gardens. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. ix. 13 
