• 34 



The NATURi^LisT. 



It would be impossible to speak, in the course of a short paper, of 

 the inhabitants of the various tanks. Perhaps the Octopus in point 

 of interest, though certainly not in point of beauty, deserves notice. 

 It is simply a great bag, furnished with two mouths, eight legs, no 

 cuttle bone. Through one of the mouths it draws in water, which 

 washes the internal gills, and is ejected in a rushing stream through 

 the other. By means of this stream it is enabled to rush through the 

 water very quickly. In tropical seas they assume gigantic propor- 

 tions, and have arms six, or even eight feet long. 



Time would fail to speak of the sturgeon, wray, whitebait, turtle, 

 lobster, crab, and other inhabitants to be seen. I shall conclude my 

 brief paper with a quotation. 



A conservatory, with its store of mute, perishable blooms, is a 

 luxury in >vhich the refined and intellectual mind cannot cease to 

 revel and delight ; but if for these, at a similar or even less cost, we 

 can exchange a variety as infinite in form and colour, endowed 

 with animal vitality, and an instinct enabling them to respond to our 

 care and attention, and thus to appeal to the highest feelings of our 

 nature, so much the greater pleasure to be gained. To add to this, 

 there is thrown over all such a halo of absolute novelty, with such an 

 inexhaustible and ever-changing wealth of variety to choose from — • 

 from the lowly anemones up to the resplendent and highly intelligent 

 fishes — that those once venturing into the ' fresh fields and pastures 

 new ' now thrown open to them through the perfection already 

 arrived at in aquarium mechanics, will only have cause to regret that 

 the gateway has been so long blocked up." Lastly, but not leastly, 

 every one so venturing acquires the position of an original observer, 

 and by a careful and intelligent record and interpretation of the 

 phenomena in constant progress beneath his eyes, more especially in 

 association with the artificial cultivation of animal forms of economic 

 value, has opportunities of benefitting both science and the community 

 at large, that have been hitherto unattainable. 



Armitage Bridge Vicarage, Huddersfield. 



NOTES ON SWISS MOLLUSCA, &c. 



By Jno. W. Taylor. 



In August and September last year I spent a short time in 

 Switzerland, and though unable to give much time to searching for 

 shells, the results of my observations may be of interest. 



