2350 The Zoologist — November, 1870. 



dead and wounded were swept into corners and under guns. Coal- 

 black Hues, following the ripples of the tide, stretched away for miles 

 down the Gulf, formed entirely of the drowned bodies of these 

 insects."— P. 105. 



In compliment to our sensational entomologists, and in continuation 

 of this exciting theme, I must extract a paragraph on ladybirds, hoping 

 it may afford wholesome pabulum for our scribes during the ap- 

 proaching winter campaign: the "countless myriads" and " Pharaoh's 

 host" have the ring of the true metal, and I positively envy the feelings 

 of the first aspirant for renown who shall reproduce them before a 

 learned and admiring audience. 



"Along the margin of the shallow bay, and in the seaweedy pools 

 left by the receding tide, were countless myriads of ladybirds, drowned, 

 like Pharaoh's host, in the waters of the sea. They had been blown 

 from the opposite coast, and were now driven up by the waves in 

 ridges miles long and in red heaps among the hollows and corners of 

 the outcropping granite rocks. Here and there we came across a 

 magnificent swimming crab ; but these waifs and strays were just as 

 eagerly sought after by lean, hungry cormorants and loud-screaming 

 gulls as by inquisitive peripatetic naturalists, who only came in for a 

 scattered mass of fragments too hard and spiky even for the maw of 

 cormorant or gull." — P. 107. 



Let me turn to another section of the Animal Kingdom, a section 

 hitherto not quite so exhausted as that to which Rhizotragus and 

 Coccinella belong — I mean the Acalephs ; these have long been a 

 fertile theme with the producers of what is called " tall writing." 

 There is a species very common on our coasts which is said to be the 

 terror of those stout-hearted Britons who occasionally delight to take 

 a header in the briny deep. "It is the terror of bathers, and once 

 tangled in its trailing hair, the unfortunate vvho has recklessly ventured 

 across the graceful monster's path, too ofted writhes in prickly torture. 

 Every struggle but binds the poisonous threads more firmly round his 

 body, and then there is no escape ; for when the winder of the fatal 

 net finds his course impeded by the terrified human " — terrified 

 human ! is not that good — " the terrified human wrestling in his 

 coils, he, seeking no combat with the mightier biped, casts loose 

 his envenomed arms and swims away. The amputated weapons 

 severed from the parent body vent their vengeance on the cause of 



