962 The Zoologist — November, 1867. 



little fish in the constant habit of basking on the rocks out of water 

 near the pools left by the receding tide, but they actually and habit- 

 ually take refuge in crannies which are left altogether high and dry, and 

 may be found there of all sizes just as readily as in the pools or under 

 stones, when once one learns where to look for them. They have the 

 power of regular progression upon land. On the 5th instant I put four 

 into an earthenware pan which has done duty here as my vivarium, 

 and put the pan on a table in a passage near the door of a sitting-room 

 which was left open. On going to them after dark I found the largest 

 shanny missing, and on search I found it jammed in head-first behind 

 the leg of a chair in the sitting-room, apparently well satisfied with its 

 place of refuge. To get from the pan to this place the shanny must 

 have escaped from the pan, tumbled over the table on to an oak floor, 

 and crossed about a foot of this floor, a door-mat and a carpet. By 

 the shortest possible route it must have travelled over four feet two 

 iuches of ground. 1 restored the fish to the pan, and it was no worse 

 for its journey next day. 1 took another and smaller fish, and put it 

 on a table covered with a table-cloth, over which it at once began to 

 move. It progressed by bending its tail alternately side and side, and 

 then using it on each turn as a fixed base whilst it jerked itself forward 

 by its ventrals, which, as you know, arc more like two fingers tied 

 together by a membrane than like fins. It went forward in a straight 

 line and rapidly. It cleared nearly its own length at each step, and 

 got over three times its length in each second of time. When held by 

 the tail it sprang violently around, evidently by the action of its 

 ventrals. It repeated these performances on the carpeted floor; but 

 one of larger size, tried on the oak floor, failed to go so fast. It did 

 not clear half the ground per step which the smaller one did, which I 

 attribute to the superiority of holding-ground afforded to the smaller 

 one by the cloth. This fish bites fiercely, holding on like a bull-dog. 

 I took several specimens, having a ground colour of black over the 

 back and dirty white on the belly ; dull-looking things compared 

 with the others, but not distinct in species. 



I captured two specimens of Montagu's blenny (/?. Montagui) 

 and one Cornish sucker (Lrphlor/aster coruubieusis), which held on 

 to the side of my pan by its sucker long after it was dead ; indeed 

 until it was forcibly removed. 



I have obtained besides pollack, conger, scad (or horse mackerel), 

 bream, gray gurnard, sapphirine gurnard (or tub), rough dab, homelyn 

 ray, Cottus bnbalis, blue shark, picked dog-fish, basse, atherine, gray 



