The Zoologist — February, 1874. 3853 



proceeding from it was awful. But the crabs were alive and well. 

 On opening the window of the cab on my way to the Zoological 

 Gardens, I let in some air, and, the day being very cold, the crabs 

 soon became torpid, and, losing hold of their shells, gradually fell 

 out of them as if dead, and I was in great trouble. I, however, put 

 them in a tray before the fire of the aquarium steam engine, and 

 they soon revived, and, walking about, repossessed themselves of 

 their shells. I afterwards kept them upon damp hot sand, at a 

 temperature of 9o° F., and fed them on meat for several months. 

 They would never stop long in the aquarium tanks, but crept out 

 and walked on the floor among visitors.* 



Gegarcinus was kept several times in the Regent's Park 

 Zoological Gardens long before there was an aquarium there. 

 The most important thing yet done in this way of compara- 

 tively dry transmission was the sending of trout-eggs from 

 Britain to Australia, and there hatching them in such a suc- 

 cessful manner that large trout are now found at the antipodes. 

 The eggs were packed in perforated chip-boxes lined with moist 

 moss, and thus the ova had both air and water (a little, but 

 enough, of both) circulating in the interspaces left by the round 

 eggs. In addition, they were kept cold by ice, and the low tem- 

 perature thus retarded the hatching on the voyage by diminishing 

 the rapidity of respiration, and thereby much lessened the demand 

 for oxygen. 



We all know how medicinal leeches — which are, of course, gill- 

 breathing animals — are sent from country to country packed in 

 moist earth, and that enclosed in bags, with no great per-centage 

 of death. Also how eels, periwinkles, mussels, cockles and oysters 

 are transported nearly dry, yet alive and well. Oysters and clams 

 even come to Britain alive from America. Sea-anemones and 

 many other aquatic creatures, including small carp and tench, are 

 frequently sent by post, in moist packing, alive. If these animals 

 had to be transported in water, the weight and trouble would be so 

 great that a trade in them could never be remunerative. What I 

 want, therefore, is to more generally and economically apply to 

 Natural History what has been done for commerce. 



• At about the same period there were some Cenobita in the London Zoological 

 Gardens, and I wrote there to know what food I should give mine, and the perfectly 

 serious reply was, " Oatmeal boiled into hard dumplings!" 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. IX. H 



