2348 The Zoologist — Outoder, 1870. 



24lb. It is the first specimen I bave ever seen in this bay. There is nothing 

 requiring remark aboiil it in addition to the notes of Couch and Yarrell, except that 

 in the front of the mouth were spiracles divided from each other by a cartilage, and 

 each divided in itself by a free lobe, both beinjf covered by a square flap of fleshy 

 substance, which was extended so as to cover the front part of the mouth. I never 

 saw any arrangement like this in any other ray. — Thomas Cornish; Penzance, 

 Augttsl 26, 1870. 



Small-eyed Rays in Mount's Bay. — On Tuesday, the 30th of August last, I took 

 four small-eyed rays {R. microcellala); but as I can almost certainly depend on taking 

 some of these fish on the ground where I took them (Pra Sand, Mount's Bay), 

 I merely nole the fact for reference. — Id. 



Thrasher in the West Bay, Portland. — A thrasher, measuring ten feet three 

 inches in length and three feet three inches and a half in circumference, was taken in 

 a seine in the West Bay at Portland yesterday afternoon, and is now being shown in 

 a tent on the sands here. About four thousand pilchards were taken in the same haul, 

 a number of others escaping over the lop of the net in the commotion caused by the 

 shark. — Alwin .S". Bell; Weymouth, September 14, 1870. 



Cray-Fish. — I am anxious to obtain the geographical distribution of the river 

 cray-fish (Aslacus jiuviatilis). In cnmjiiling that part of my 'Catalogue Fauna of 

 Devon' relating to the stalk-e^ed Crustacea, including an introductory essay on the 

 ]iistology of their shells, which I read last week before the Devon Association for the 

 Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art, held at Devonport, I was greatly 

 astonished to find that the cray-fish is not a native of Devon. I have made inquiries 

 in every direction where I thought to obtain information of this species, but have so 

 far not been able to procure or hear of an authentic Devon specimen. It is stated by 

 Dr. Moure, in Loudon's ' Magazine of Natural History,' that there was when he wrote 

 a Devon specimen in the museum at Plymouth, from Mr. Prideaux, but no locality was 

 attached to it; and this is the only one I have heard of in the county. I have had 

 them from the Tane, near Taunton ; and I have had them from near Salisbury, where 

 ihey are plentiful. I wrote my friend Mr. Pulman, the author of 'The Book of the 

 Axe,' thinking that the cray-fish, if to be found in the county at all, would be met with 

 in this river, or some of its tributaries ; but he tells me it is not found there, but that he 

 has found them in numbers in the streams in meadows at Maiden Newton, near 

 Dorchester. Now, if we draw a line from this place, or say from Portland, it will cut 

 these streams at Maiden Newton, Taunton, and end in Watchet Bay, giving an angle 

 of about forty-five degrees west; this appears to be the line of demarcation of this 

 species westward. I bave heard it staled — and, indeed, it was mentioned in the 

 discussion on my paper — that the river cray-fish is never found except in rivers flowing 

 to the east; and il was also staled that they were as frequently found in rivers flowing 

 to the west, but the country people generally believe in the former. Whether this be 

 a legend of the west, I am not prepared to say, or whether it pertains to other parts of 

 England ; perhaps some of your correspondents will be good enough to say. — Edward 

 Purjitl; Exeter. — From the ^ Field.' 



