Eacliata. 5181 



greatest elongation is at night. Some of my specimens have voluntarily left their 

 tubes, and others have been deprived of them by myself; but in each instance they 

 have immediately set to work making others, of the material with which I have sup- 

 plied them, completing the first or inner coating in a couple of days. Their value as 

 novel inmates for the marine aquarium consists in their excessive hardiness. They 

 continue boldly out and fully opened under nearly all circumstances, and hardly any 

 amount of foulness in the water seems to affect them. I hope to give further details 

 of the habit and anatomy of this exceedingly curious zoophyte in next month's ' Zoo- 

 logist.' I may also add, that as every week brings me several hundred of living ma- 

 rine animals, chiefly of the lower forms of Invertebrata, new species, fresh varieties, 

 and abnormal conditions are continually being presented. — W. Alford Lloyd ; 19 and 

 20, Portland Road, Regent's Park, London, June 16, 1856. 



Occurrence of the Great Sea-cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa) at Banff". — I had the 

 pleasure yesterday, for the first time here, of receiving from one of our fishermen a 

 very large and most splendid specimen of the above. It was brought up on their lines. 

 It is still alive, but appears a little sickly. When at rest it is fully 16 inches long. 

 It is of a very deep purple in all except the under side, which is grayish. It is a 

 most wonderful and at the same time a most interesting animal. What strange forms 

 and curious shapes it assumes at will! What pen or what language could describe 

 them ? Now like a pear, then like a long purse or large pudding ; now like two mon- 

 ster and knotty potatoes joined endways ; now like a bulb, smooth and no suckers 

 visible; and then, again, as long as my arm, and rough and warty looking. Its ten- 

 tacula, too ! how strange they are ! simple to appearance, but yet how complete and 

 how beautiful withal ! — But, no ! I am not going to attempt it. What strange forms 

 and what beauteous creatures and inconceivable things there are in the ocean's depths! 

 What a pity it is that we cannot traverse its hidden fields and explore its untrodden 

 caverns ! I wish I could ! What a poor, puny-looking thing the girken (JEnus lac- 

 teus) is beside this great king of the Holothuriadse family ! It appears to be a rare 

 species with us, or at least is very seldom met with. — Thomas Edward ; 13, Old Mar- 

 ket Place, Banff, June 5, 1856. 



Note on a Sea-cucumber in Confinement. — The suicidal propensities of the Echino- 

 dermata are traditional. Nothing is more common than to see a star-fish in an aqua- 

 rium throw off one or more arms, crawl about for a few hours or a day or two, and then 

 die. Less, however, is known of that more obscure family of the order, the Holothu- 

 riadae ; therefore some value will be attached to the fact that just five weeks ago (May 

 9), during my removal from St. John-Street Road to my present place of business, a 

 pet Pentacta pentactes, which for many months I have kept in a quart-glass jar, be- 

 came irritated at the jolting of the cab, and on the following day threw off its head, 

 tentacula and dental apparatus, and then discharged its viscera. These I removed 

 with a pipette, the animal itself lying helplessly, an empty sac, on the sand at the 

 bottom of the jar. As in three days it gave no signs of decomposition, I let it remain; 

 and on the fourth day I found it closely and firmly attached to the side of the jar. 

 Since then it has kept on moving about with as much activity as belongs to its slug- 

 gish tribe, sometimes twining among the fronds of Ulva latissima, and very often re- 

 maining motionless on the side of the glass, at the water's edge. Occasionally, chiefly 

 at night, it drives from its anal extremity a current of water, sufficiently strong to blow 

 the sand into a hole where it happens to impinge upon it. I hope to have to 

 announce indications of renewal of the tentacles in the August number of the ' Zoolu- 



