148 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



before the next year's visit, and yet would not cost more than haviug down 

 three lecturers for the local institution or society, apart from this work." 



Mr. J. E. S. Moore, of the Royal College of Science, London, has 

 recently been investigating the African Lake Fauna. In a recent number 

 of * Nature' it was announced that he had made the apparent discovery of 

 dimorphism in the Tanganyika medusa, with active budding in both forms. 

 Further interesting particulars have been extracted from the ' Central 

 African Gazette,' published at Zomba. 



" Mr. Moore verified the report, which travellers on Tanganyika have 

 heard from time to time, that there is a large fish in the lake which rushes 

 at the paddles of a canoe passing through the water. He actually saw this 

 take place. He also discovered a large electric fish which gives a severe 

 shock on being touched. Tanganyika, indeed, appears to be full of fish. 

 By trailing a line with au artificial minnow behind the boat, Mr. Moore 

 caught enormous numbers of fish, some of them up to sixty pounds in 

 weight — bright clean fish with silvery scales. The heaviest fish which was 

 seen in the lake weighed over ninety pounds ; this was a sort of mud-fish. 

 Sponges were also discovered in Tanganyika, which though of no great 

 size were undoubtedly real sponges. On the east side of the lake, in a 

 bay where the striped leech was very common, Mr. Moore found a small 

 fish about the size of a small minnow, whose back was striped in imitation of 

 the leech, and this seemed to protect it against the raids of the kingfishers, 

 which, while constantly picking up other small fish, avoided this particular 

 one." 



At a January meeting of the "Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club," 

 as reported in the ' Shrewsbury Chronicle,' Mr. H. E. Forrest exhibited, on 

 behalf of Mr. Harold Peake, of Ellesmere, three young Vipers, which were 

 taken out of the parent, and remarkable for each having two small legs, 

 These were believed to be unique, and as probably an instance of "reversion 

 to an ancestral type." We are indebted to Mr. R. H. Ramsbotham for the 

 above cutting, and that gentleman writes that he had an opportunity of 

 examining the three young Vipers referred to preserved in spirit — "said to 

 be part of seven taken from a female Viper before birth, and which distinctly 

 exhibited two small feet protruding from the lower portion of the belly." 



