9226 Natural-History Notes. 
strongly evinced in a particular species found in those tropical 
waters. 
Tamsay, Formosa, April 11, 1864. 
Koksing’s Shells—There is an island between the mouth of this 
river and Kelung, called in Chinese “ Lobster Island,” whereon, in a 
fresh-water stream, occurs a species of Neritina of Lamarck. I sent a 
man there, and procured a dozen specimens. These shells are all 
much worn at the apex, as in several other fresh-water univalves, but 
to a much greater degree. They are called by the Chinese “ Kok- 
sing’s shells,” and the story runs that when that great pirate chief, the 
“ Conqueror of Kingdoms” (that being the literal rendering of his 
Chinese cognomen), landed on the island to drive the Dutch from it, 
and to subjugate the Indians, the rightful possessors of the soil, he 
was an hungered, and, picking up one of these shells, bit the end of 
it, but finding it bitter threw it down, and muttered a curse against 
the species. Since then a ban has laid upon the whole race, and every 
specimen is broken at its apex and marked with the impression of the 
conqueror’s teeth. This story would appear plausible enough to the 
superstitious, for certainly every specimen that I have seen does look 
as if it bad been bitten. ‘They are said to be peculiar to this small 
Lobster Island, and I have not yet procured them elsewhere. 
Whales—In the spring of 1860 a large whale, probably Balena 
australis of Desmarest, was stranded on the sand-spit at Ape’s Hill, 
Formosa. I saw one myself off Swatow, in May, 1860, when on my 
way from Hong Kong to Amoy, and I hear that scarcely a year passes 
but one is stranded in the vicinity of Swatow. The whale I saw jumped 
almost clean out of the water, and I thus got a good view of it, though 
it was a mile off at least. I should judge it to have been about forty _ 
feet long, with a finless back and a large, flat-looking head, fully one- 
third its entire length. A frieud of mine tells me that when he was sta- 
tioned, some years ago, at Namoa (an island near Swatow), whales 
used frequently to visit the neighbourhood in May. They were mostly 
cows, with their calves, about twenty feet long. Some of the adults 
were seventy feet long. In the night time they used to gambol close 
round the ship, making their proximity known by the loud puffing 
noise they made, resembling the sound produced by the piston of a 
steam engine. In the day time they might be seen putting their 
long heads out of the water and opening their immense jaws. The 
