FLOOR.] 
BRITISH ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 
19 
Cases 25, 26. The File-fish, with small teeth and a hard skin ; the 
Coffin-fish, with a hard horny skin, formed of six or eight-sided 
plates. 
On the tops of the Cases are some specimens of the larger Fish ; 
the Sudis gigas of Guiana, the largest fresh-water fish ; the Flying 
Sword-fish ; the pike of a Sword-fish forced through the oak timber of a 
ship, these fish swimming with great force. 
Tables 1-12. Insects, such as the Coleoptera, or Beetles; the Leaf 
beetle, or Mormolyce of Java ; the Scarabseus, esteemed sacred by the 
Egyptians ; the large African Goliath Beetles ; the Fire-fly of the West 
Indies ; the Weevils, as the Diamond Beetle of Brazil ; the long- 
horned Beetles, such as the Harlequin Beetle ; the Tortoise Beetles ; 
the Lady-birds, so destructive to the plant-lice. Orthopterous Insects, 
such as the Praying Mantis, with their eggs ; the Walking Sticks and 
Leaf insects, resembling leaves and twigs of trees; the Crickets. 
Neuropterous Insects, as Dragon-flies ; Ant-lions, the larvae of which 
form pits to catch insects ; the White Ants, so destructive in the tropics. 
Hymenopterous Insects, as the Ichneumons, Ants, Wasps, and Bees, 
the most interesting of all the orders on account of the curious habits 
and strange instincts and powers of its members. The Lepidopterous 
Insects, such as the Butterflies, Hawkmoths, and Moths; the Hemi- 
ptera and Homoptera, with their strange forms ; the Diptera, such as the 
Gnat and the Breeze. The Tsetse of South Africa, a fly which de- 
stroys horses and domestic cattle. 
Tables 11, 12. The Spiders, as the Mygale, or Bird-catching Spider ; 
the Mining Spiders, which dig holes in clayey banks, and close them by 
a door hanging with a hinge; the Scorpions; the Ticks, one of which 
is parasitic on the Rhinoceros. The Centipedes and Millipedes, so 
called from the great number of their feet. 
Tables 13-24. Crustacea, such as the Land Crabs of the West 
Indies ; the Hermit Crabs, which live in shells; the Robber Crab or Tree 
Lobster, which climbs the cocoa-nut trees to get at the nuts ; the Lob- 
sters and Cray-fish ; the Glass Crabs found in the tropical parts of the 
ocean ; the King Crabs of America and the Chinese seas. 
FIFTH EOOM. 
The Wall Cases contain the exotic Cartilaginous Fish, such as the 
voracious Sharks; the Rays ; the Torpedo or Numb-fish, which defend 
themselves by means of a galvanic-like apparatus on each side of the 
head ; the Sturgeons of the Russian and American rivers ; the long 
and flat-snouted Polyodon of the Mississippi. On the tops of the Oasi a 
are the saws of various Saw-fish, and specimens of the larger Cartila- 
ginous fish, and some of the larger Sponges, such as Neptune's Cup. 
In the Table Cases are exhibited various kinds of Sponges which be- 
long to an extensive class of living beings, mostly microscopic, in which 
the distinctive character of the Animal or of the Vegotable is not fully 
developed. 
JOHN EDWARD G KAY. 
c 2 
