The Zoologist— October, 1870. 2313 



head like a ray and a tail like a shark. The shore was strewn with 

 many other remnants of fish, crab and cattle, to which various fatal 

 casualties had occurred. Among these we observed an entire flotilla 

 of lauthinas, or violet sea-snails, which had suffered shipwreck despite 

 the buoyant floats with which each tiny vessel has been provided by 

 Nature. Now, however, the scene was very peaceful. Out at sea 

 only two little boats vt-ere visible, fishing for snook (a kind of long- 

 nosed mackerel), between Noah's Ark and the Roman Rocks. The 

 long rolling breakers came tumbling in with a deep and hollow roar, 

 and on the huge bare rocks along one portion of the shore sat the 

 cormorants drying their dusky wings, or sitting upright, motionless, 

 like learned doctors met in solemn conclave. Near them were fooHsh 

 penguins, gorged with fish, dozing in the fitful sun gleams. Three 

 skulls of the ' right whale ' were bleaching on the sand, and the eye of 

 the great sea-eagle watched us from above." — P. 38. 



I would here bid adieu to the Cape, but there is another little bit of 

 Natural History, so prettily told and affording so pleasant a contrast 

 to unclean carrion beetles and odoriferous fish, that 1 cannot forbear 

 making the extract. 



"During our brief sojourn at the Cape I was greatly interested in 

 the way in which Nature provides for the dissemination of the seeds 

 of the splendid silver-tree, the Leucodendron argenteum of botanists. 

 The lance -like leaves, the stem, the branches, and even the fruit-cones, 

 are covered with a silky down which glistens in the sun with a silvery 

 sheen, and the mode by which the fruit is dispersed is, as I have said, 

 very curious. The large oval, silvery cone is covered with scales, 

 which being recurved by the heat, the ripe fruit or seed is suddenly 

 cast forth with a little click. It does not fall at once however to the 

 ground, but is borne up by a beautiful contrivance. The fruit is 

 enclosed in a thin amber-coloured capsule or case, surmounted by a 

 crown composed of four feathery shafts, which radiate upwards, but 

 are united at their bases to form a sheath for the pistil. When the 

 ripe fruit is ejected from the cone it bursts the membranous envelope 

 which holds it, and when released falls about an inch and remains 

 suspended by the stigma, which forms a sort of knot, thus at the same 

 time balancing the tiny parachute, and by its mode of suspension 

 forming a beautiful provision to take off the weight of the parachute 

 when the seed strikes the ground." — P. 40. 



