278 Transact i<>m. — Zoology. 



behaved as the ice gradually closed around them, but in the freezing cham- 

 ber there was every facility for doing so. At 11.10 a.m. the increasing 

 coldness of the water in the pannikins was rendering their movements less 

 active. They glided from one side to the other, and from the surface to the 

 bottom, hut in such a manner as to leave in one's mind the impression that 

 they anticipated something. Their attidude was that of expectancy. An 

 hour afterwards they were apparently going to sleep, the goldfish on its 

 side, the other in its ordinary position. The fins kept moving in a lazy 

 manner, there was no twitching, no abrupt action. The motion reminded 

 one of the vibration of a wire that is slowly but surely coming to rest. The 

 eyes were clear, and to all appearances a deep and placid sleep was falling 

 stealthily upon them. Two hours afterwards they were in the same posi- 

 tion, but now there was no movement, the ice was seen advancing upon 

 them like an attacking army with bayonets in front. Some of the spikes of 

 ice had already reached parts of the bodies, and catching the light from 

 the candle produced a strikingly beautiful combination of colour. In fact 

 the two creatures were sleeping in the light of a gorgeous sunset. After 

 eight hours' exposure to the temperature of the freezing chamber, and two 

 more to the much lower temperature of the snow-box, another part of the 

 freezing apparatus, and feeling convinced that the ice was solid throughout, 

 I removed the pannikins to the thawing tubs and sat down to watch for 

 any indication of life. But, alas for this experiment, there were no signs 

 of returning vitality. When freed from the ice, the salt-water fish kept 

 floating about for a short time in the same position as that it occupied 

 when inside the block of ice, and then slowly sank to the bottom, while 

 the goldfish on being freed continued to float for upwards of an hour during 

 which I sat watching it. Next morning it was still floating, not erect like 

 the other, but on its side with the tail slightly depressed. The fish was 

 apparently dead. At night it maintained the same position, and I con- 

 cluded that life had gone from my goldfish for ever. 



Such is a brief statement of what was done in a few hours of leisure. 

 I have made it in the hope that others who have more time at their disposal 

 and more enlarged facilities for carrying out a series of experiments will 

 proceed with the investigation, and perhaps some new and valuable infor- 

 mation regarding the conditions of life may crown their efforts. 



The deeply-pathetic words that so briefly told the fate of the brave men 

 who accompanied Franklin are, with some slight modification, applicable to 

 my two fishes : — " "When they lay, they slept ; and when they slept, then 

 they died." 



