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SC1EKOE-G0 35IP. 



[^'ov. 1, 1865. 



feet broad, and six inches deep, and having a further 

 depth of six inclies of fine sand, in which these 

 animals ordinarily burrow quite out of sight. But 

 if I draw over the surface of the sand a piece of 

 oyster, mussel, or meat, or even if I touch it ever 

 so lightly with the feeding forceps, the points of 

 which smell of food, then in a few moments may be 

 perceived the tips of the long proboscis of the 

 molluscs projecting here and there above the sand, 

 and gradually working through it higher and higher, 

 till presently the shells themselves emerge (each one 

 bearing on its upper surface a little load of sand, 

 which presently drops off), and travelling to and fro 

 with much earnestness of purpose till the food is 

 discovered, or till the whole surface of the sand is 

 diligently searched for it. They look exactly like 

 little elephants moving about with their trunks aloft, 

 and when they are half in and half out of the sand, 

 with their proboscis above its surface, they remind 

 me of a picture I have somewhere seen of elephants 

 crossing a river, the body of the animal beiug sub- 

 merged, with only a part of the trunk visible above 

 the water's surface. Sometimes I place in the tank 

 a half-picked mutton or beef bone, and in a few 

 minutes it becomes completely covered with nassas, 

 and in the course of some hours they leave it per- 

 fectly bare, and then descend into the sand. It is 

 impossible, in fact, to introduce any animal sub- 

 stance, living or dead, into the tank, without these 

 Whelks smelling it, and coming up to see what is to 

 be got. — W. Alford Lloyd. 



Dead Sea Water. — Some time since, having ob- 

 tained a quart of water from the Dead Sea, through 

 the kindness of a friend who had recently come 

 from the Holy Land, I of course must needs yield to 

 my aquarium predilections, and arrange it in a glass 

 jar for the maintenance of plants and animals, and 

 accordingly I exposed the glass of water, with some 

 sliingle at the bottom, to the mfluence of light, in 

 order to get some vegetation to grow, but none ever 

 came, as it would have done in any ordinary sea- 

 water in one-fourth of the time. Nor would any 

 animal live in it. I tried various small hardy crus- 

 taceous fish, molluscs, sea-anemones, and other 

 creatures, but all in vain; it was most intractable 

 stuff, intolerably nauseous to the taste and sticky to 

 the touch, and of very high specific gravity ; so I 

 soon bottled it up again.— 7^. AlforALloyd, Zoological 

 Gardens, Hamburg. 



Sea Anemones.— Mr. Lloyd asks whether any 

 one has ever seen a small specimen of Sagartia 

 parasitica or Tealia crassicornis ? I have had little 

 Parasilica born in my tank, and they have grown 

 up and flourished. I have also had Crassicornis born, 

 but only from a deep-water species obtained on the 

 south-coast. The common Thickhorn has never bred 

 in my aquaria. Adumsia palliata has bred by divi- 

 sion into two halves, as is the habit in Coryvuclis, 



&c. It was very singular to see the annoyance 

 of the Pagurus Prideauxii at the division ; he tore 

 off one of the halves and cast it away, and fed the 

 other at once. There is an article in the November 

 number of Annals of Natural History, for 1863, 

 giving some insight into the relations subsisting 

 between these two animals. I have frequently 

 dredged Parasitica attached to Maia Squinado and 

 other large crabs, but do not remember ever having 

 dredged an Adamsia, except on an univalve shell. 

 I have, however, a very beautiful specimen attached 

 to the rockwork in one of my aquaria, its crab having 

 been killed in a battle. I envy Mr. Lloyd his 

 opportunities of studying marine natural history, and 

 wish I could manage to see the Hamburg aquai'ia. 

 Even in my comparatively small aquaria the study 

 is of the deepest interest, and with care I 

 manage to keep very delicate animals alive. The 

 fifteen-spined stickleback bred in my tank two 

 years ago, and the building of their nest was mfjst 

 interesting to watch. I have a very fine pair of that 

 handsome deep-water crab, Gomplex angulata ; they 

 have built a regular house, pushing small rocks 

 together and completely clearing out the sand, 

 carrying it away in armsful to a considerable distance 

 The Aldheiis ruber has the same habit, and has 

 subterranean ways all round the tank in which he 

 lives. He is a wonderfully interesting animal, and 

 I have never heard of his being kept alive before. 

 He was sent to me from Guernsey, and has been 

 with me for eighteen months, having just cast his 

 shell for the fourth time. He is now as big as a 

 rather large prawn, and of a brilliant pellucid scarlet. 

 Keepers of aquaria should have the Haliotis (ormer 

 or ear shell) if possible, there is no mollusc like 

 them for keeping the vegetation within bounds. I 

 think few people know how beautiful an object a 

 vase of sea anemones may be made, with their 

 brilliant colours and elegant forms. I took a photo- 

 graph of one of my aquaria two years ago, solely to 

 record the graceful form of some of my favourites. 

 I am very anxious to compare the various ane- 

 mones of the British coast. Would ^y of your 

 readers join with me in this, by sending me, for 

 examination, specimens from their own part of the 

 coast p-zS-. F"., E.Z.S. 



Intekmittekt Fountain. — M. I'Abbe Laborde, 

 writing to Les Mondes, describes a simple apparatus 

 for producing an intermittent fountain. It consists 

 of an inverted flask fitted with a cork, through which 

 pass two tubes of unequal length. The longer 

 reaches nearly to the bottom of the flask, and outside 

 has a length of some twenty inches. The shorter 

 tube merely pierces the cork, and does not extend 

 to any length inside, and outside it ends immediately 

 in a jet, which can be curved round. The flask is 

 filled with water, fitted with the two tubes, and then, 

 wii.h the finger on the shorter tube, is inverted 



