22 LEPJDOSIBENIDiE. 



Marno, who has observed it in the marshes of the Bahr-el-Seraf, says specimens are 

 dug out of the dry earth by the natives, who feed on them, but that they are never 

 found in cocoons as on the Gaboon and Niger. In the marshes they are caught by 

 means of spears. Marno only found animal remains in the stomach — fish-bones, 

 insect larvae, and especially small water-snails. The Niggers call the fish Lhut, the 

 Arabs Debib-el-hut. 



Contrary to the observations of Marno, Stuhlmann found that the Nile Protopterns 

 will also eat beans and cooked rice. A note appended to the specimen brought home 

 from the Kakonde River, at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, by Dr. Cunnington, 

 states that the fish was taken in a native-made wicker trap, baited with vegetable matter. 

 Although thus captured, a specimen opened by Dr. Cunnington contained partially 

 digested fish in the stomach. The late Father De Beerst, who has published some notes 

 on the habits of the fish as observed on the west coast of Lake Tanganyika, regarded 

 it as essentially herbivorous, the stomach of two large specimens opened by him being 

 filled with aquatic plants and stalks of rice with their ears. On one occasion he 

 found the male surrounded with hundreds of young, similar to newt-larvae, an 

 observation since confirmed by Budgett * in the case of the West-African species, 

 which makes a sort of nest on which the male keeps guard until the young are strong 

 enough to disperse. 



* Tr. Zool. Soc. xvi. 1901, p. 119, 



