5368 Mollusks. 



I did not know the whole of it myself for more than a year afterwards. 

 My friends in the bottle, then, were as follows : — 



Animal. 



1 Bithonia tentaculata, junior, T T oth of an inch long. 

 31 Valvata piscinalis, six being full-grown, the rest small. 



8 „ cristata; two full-grown, the remaining six young. 

 18 Limneus stagnalis, Frey; the largest not exceeding Jth of an inch 

 long: it was for the sake of these that I had saved the 

 contents of my net. 



Vegetable. 



Two small pieces of leaf, I think, Myosotis; the largest could 

 scarcely have exceeded Jth of an inch square ; the one was 

 green, the other half decayed. 



Two small seeds. 



The bottle which contained these was a short wide-mouthed two- 

 ounce one, and it was about two -thirds filled with water from the 

 brook. The cork was of close texture, had a box-wood cap to it, and 

 fitted the bottle very tightly. 



The bottle remained where it had been packed, entirely forgotten, 

 for some six weeks, until, going one morning to get some shells from 

 the hat-box, I found it. To my great surprise, instead of the water 

 being foul and stinking and all the animals dead, the water was as 

 clear as when put in, and several Valvatae were clinging to the sides 

 of the bottle. On looking more closely I found that the Limnei were 

 all dead, but that all the Valvatae and the Bithinia tentaculata were 

 alive. Another point that struck me as remarkable was that the one 

 little piece of leaf was as green as ever, and had not been at all eaten, 

 and the other was not at all more decomposed than when placed in 

 the bottle. I immediately determined to leave the bottle as it was, in 

 order to make further observations, and see how long these Mollusca 

 would remain alive in the (say at the outside) ounce and a half of 

 water, shut up, too, in an air-tight bottle. The following are the 

 observations that have since been made : — 



Middle of March. The two seeds, of whose presence I was now for 

 the first time made aware, germinated, and in a few days had shot up 

 long slender sickly stems to the surface of the water, and their coty- 

 ledons expanded, but remained of a sickly yellow. The half-decom- 



