The Zoologist — February, 1874. 3849 



have explained. It is this, that while many of the creatures I have 

 named will bear the four hours' journey from Southend, some of 

 them will not bear the twelve hours' transit from Plymouth, though 

 equal care be apparently taken with the packing in both cases.*- 

 But when such packing is possible, the gain is enormous in every- 

 thing. We often, at the Palace, get a couple of thousand of animals, 

 or more, in packages weighing altogether not half a hundred-weight, 

 while if the same animals needed to be conveyed in properly aerated 

 masses of actual water, each creature would require a pound-weight of 

 water, instead of only a fraction of a grain-weight to each. The money 

 value of the moist plan is strikingly shown in the instance of shrimps, 

 of which we use about a ton weight every year in the Crystal Palace 

 Aquarium for feeding purposes, and we require them alive, because 

 many animals refuse to eat them when dead (when, too, they rapidly 

 decompose and become poisonous), and besides, we are obliged to 



• Mr. Herbert Ingall, for whose opinions on all matters I have the highest 

 respect, gives the probably right explanation : — 



" In packing animals for travelling in a moistened substance, but to which the air 

 has free access, we would certainly seem to be employing the most eifective as well 

 as the most convenient method of sustaining the life of the animals so treated, as 

 the moisture keeps the tissues moist (to a certain extent) in the natural form, so as 

 not to stop the circulation or other vital processes of the living things; the 

 moisture facilitating the respiration by being in thin films, and therefore the mora 

 easily they absorb oxygen. In practice this manner of carriage is found to be 

 successful in some eases for very long periods of time, and the question naturally 

 arises, — If an animal so treated can live for four or twenty-four hours, why should 

 the same method not be effective and successful for periods of forty or two hundred 

 and forty hours ? To answer this we can but suggest the reasons of the method being 

 unsuccessful for the longer periods, and these suggestions be proved by experiment, as 

 there are no doubt many causes acting together that result in the death of the animal. 

 Let us consider what may be the causes. Least of all we may consider the (in the 

 larger and more active animals at least) undesirable and cramped position that they 

 must necessarily suffer from, and their inability to take food. But the most probable 

 cause of death is this— that the quantity of au- and oxygen supplied to the animal 

 being often more than usual, the respiration and vital processes are more rapid, and 

 the waste necessarily greater, as also therefore will be the excretions of the animal. 

 When (and this period will of course vary according to circumstances) the excreta, 

 not being removed, as they would be in the sea, become so great that the oxygen is 

 all required to decompose the organic poisons (for such they are) the animal naturally 

 dies of asphyxia, there being no oxygen available for the respiratory processes, or it 

 may even die of organic poisoning. It is I think probable that this is the main cause 

 of death after certain varying periods. Cold would of course retard it by lessening 

 the rapidity of the vital processes. It perhaps miglit be proved exjienmentally by 

 pacldng animals in the way described, and causing the removal of the effete matter 

 in some way." 



