DR. M'iNTOSH on BRITISH SALP^. 41 



their dead companion at tlie bottom ; and if this fury subsided for 

 a time, it was repeatedly renewed without apparent cause, and 

 with an activity which caused them sometimes to leap out of the 

 water, and even over the side of the vessel, to a considerable 

 distance. Mr. Edward surmises that in the open sea this propen- 

 sity to leap above the surface is rarely exercised ; but it renders it 

 difficult to keep them alive within a narrow space, and in the pre- 

 sent instance it became necessary to place a (glass) cover on the 

 vessel in which they were confined — an arrangement which speedily 

 caused the death of two of the remaining combatants, in conse- 

 quence of the injury they received from leaping against it in the 

 violence of their contention. Mr. Edward remarks that he never 

 witnessed the lifting up of the longer filament in front of the 

 ciliated membrane on the back, but only of such as were behind it. 

 The latter, however, were kept in constant vibratile action when 

 the proper fins were at rest (as is the case also with this mem- 

 brane in the Eocklings), while on the slightest disturbance their 

 motion ceased and they sank within the protection of the channel 

 prepared to receive them. The single barb in front of the upper 

 lip appears to be endued with some special function, since, unlike 

 the others, it is capable of visible, and perhaps voluntary, extension 

 and retraction. 



I regard it as no other than an act of justice to the discoverer 

 of this fish to assign to it the name of Edward's Midge (CottcJiia 

 Edwardii), of which the specific character is sufficiently obvious. 



Some Observations on British Salpce. By W. C. McIntosh, 

 M.D.,E.L.S. 

 [Plate I.] 

 [Read Nov. 16, 1865.] 

 The comparative rarity of these swimming MoUuscoids within 

 the ordinary experience of British zoologists induced me to pay 

 some attention to them when lately engaged with another depart- 

 ment of the science in the Hebrides. Indeed during the month 

 of August they were the grand feature of the Western Ocean ; so 

 that the late Professor E. Forbes, in his three voyages through 

 Scottish seas, during which he states that he saw not a single 

 specimen *, must have passed these islands at the wrong season, 



* And Gosse obserres, in his ' Manual of Marine Zoology,' vol. ii., "Tliey are 

 chiefly tropical and oceanic animals, swimmers in the wide and open sea, visiting 

 our coast so rarely that we can scarcely reckon tliem as properly British 

 animals." 



