8334 



Moll asks. 



the time they were there was from 85 to 90 degrees by day, and from 65 to 70 degrees 

 at night, The female measures 12 inches long, by 12£ inches wide. The male, 

 8 inches long by 8^ inches wide, each over the back. 



Immense take of Flounders on the Danish Coast.— In a letter from my brother, dated 

 Gothenburg, November 28, 1862, he writes : — " There have been caught, after the late 

 storms on the coast of Denmark, a quantity of flounders, estimated at two and a half 

 millions in number, and they say the sea is still literally full of them. They don't 

 know what to do with any more that they may take, though there is a salting establish- 

 ment in full work already. Five hundred men were employed day and night for three 

 weeks in catching these fish." — A'. F. Dobree ; Hull, December 2, 1862. 



Rambles in search of Land- shells. By Arthur Adams, Esq., F.L.S. 



One of the earliest rambles I find recorded in my journal is at Rio, 

 where the ' Actaeon' was engaged some time in surveying the islands 

 at the entrance of the harbour. In the month of February, 1857, as I 

 jump ashore at Praya do Botafogo, the white sandy beach is strewn 

 with shield-like Clypeasters and the bleaching forms of Ocypode and 

 Hippa. All around rise lichen-varied granite rocks, large and smooth, 

 and speckled over with green clumps of huge columnar Cacti. As I 

 go inland I encounter a host of floral beauties — coronate, trumpet- 

 shaped and star-like ; and among them I notice the modest flowers of 

 Thunbergia, the blue blossoms of Plumbago, and the crimson corymbs 

 of Asclepias. At the bottom of a well I cast a covetous eye on a long- 

 necked water-tortoise, a species of Emys, which, however, cannot be 

 persuaded to enter the bucket which is usually suspended above him. 

 The green-topped tapering palms are splendid, and there are nume- 

 rous delicate pink-flowered orchids clustering among the branches of 

 the trees. Here, among the humid undergrowth, crawling on the de- 

 caying leaves of plantains and bananas, I discover that singular snail, 

 Streptaxis contusa, Fer. The animal is of a deep straw-colour, 

 inclining to orange ; the ocular tentacles are long and very slender, 

 with the eyes at the extreme tips of the slightly swollen bulbs. In 

 the only other account of the animal published, Couthnoy has 

 described the oral or inferior tentacles as bifurcate, but they are in 

 reality short, with a small knob at the ends, and with a subulate oral 

 appendage, nearly as long as themselves, attached to their inner side. 

 The buccal mass or mouth can be extended in the form of a short 



