300 Field Notes. 
should be met with alive on a hard and dusty high road is 
certainly unusual. On the 28th of last month, when walking 
with two others on the road from Gainsborough to Corringham 
I found an eel stretched out at full length on the road side. 
It was quite a foot long, and covered with dust, as worms often 
are when they have tried to cross a road or path in the cool 
of the night and have failed. On taking it up by the tail, it 
showed signs of life, and gave a spasmodic jerk, apparently 
all it was capable 0 , and then became limp again. In a field 
near there is a pond, about one hundred yards from the place 
where the eel was when I found it, and from which it had 
doubtless come; and, on my putting it in, placing it in 
shallow water to watch its movements, it gave another spas- 
modic twist, and lay still. The cause of its being where I 
found it is, I think, to be accounted for. On the 24th June 
came that deluge of rain, following a long drought, which seems 
to have been prevalent throughout the greater part of England. 
In this locality it poured for twenty-four hours without ceasing, 
and, owing to the hard state of the ground, the accumulated 
water lay on the surface in sheets and pools for several days 
before it was absorbed. This, in all probabil ty, had led the 
eel, on leaving the pond, to wander away from the meadow, 
across a hard asphalt footpath, on to the road which gradually 
became dusty again.—F. M. Burton, Highfield, Gainsborough. 
—:0 :— 
MOLLUSCA. 
Unio margaritifer in confinement.—This pelecypod 
which we notice in our well-aerated mountain rivers, subject 
to occasional torrential flows, can be kept in confinement fora 
long time. Having noticed its habits in Scotland and the 
north of England, I thought I would try to keep some of them 
alive for a while. I have some living at present (and none have 
died) which I got from Ennerdale, nearly three years ago. I 
placed them in an earthenware vessel, holding about two 
gallons, and put them on a sink in my private room in the 
College biological laboratory, allowing the water to continually 
drop into the full vessel. A luxurious growth of bacteria, 
diatoms and many other minute alge soon appeared, together 
with various rotifers, Anguillula, infusoria, etc. I then placed 
on the surface, a little Ricciella fluitans and Lemna minor, 
which rapidly increased, and have continued to grow ever 
since. At present, there is an abundance of Nais and a 
Tardigrade among the rich mixture of plants and minute 
animals about the surface. I may add that I have kept 
Anodonta cygnea and Astacus fluviatilis alive in a similar 
way for about a year; none of them died, but the experiment 
was stopped, as the necessity arose of using the animals for 
Naturalist, 
