In any case, indeed, the fact seems to me deserving of attention : for suppose the crab did not employ the whole of the twenty hours in her journey, then she must have gone at a still greater rate of course. Suppose she did, and I think we must acknowledge that if she did not walk very fast, she walked a long while. Twenty hours at a stretch is very fair for a crab. The story suggests, too, some other odd speculations. How did she find her way back ? What made her go ? Want of food anywhere else ? Or love of home, perhaps, and fatherland, — a kind of submarine Nostalgia P Moreover, it shows (what we might naturally have expected, indeed), great imprudence on her part and very culpable indocility to have profited so little by her recent danger and escape. — W.S. Lewis ; Cotham Hill Villa, West Clifton, January, 1846.
[In this instance does it not seem probable that the fishermen found two crabs of a similar size and sex, and also similarly circumstanced as regards the recent ecdysis ? — Edward Newman].
Pisidium pusillum attracted by the skull of a Fox. — I have much pleasure in sending an account of a circumstance which has lately come under my notice. In the begin- ning of this month, while staying at Tregeare, near Launceston, I amused myself by cleaning the skull of a fox, and to do this the more easily, I soaked it in water for a day or two. At the end of the second day, when I took the bone out of the water, I noticed upon it a few specimens of Pisidium pusillum. Thinking that it might be an acci- dental occurrence, I replaced the bones, and after two days I again examined them, when to my surprise, I found them literally covered with these minute shells. I counted upwards of forty, but should think that the number on the whole skull could not have been far short of two hundred. I have often found them by twos and threes clinging to stones, never before in any larger quantity than three, or four at the most. There have been lately many interesting notices in ' The Zoologist ' of the carnivorous pro- pensities of different mollusks. I am inclined to think that this circumstance goes far towards a proof that this little Pisidium by no means despises a rich and savory meal. The stream in which I found them was about eighteen inches broad and about four deep, being merely a drain by the side of a hedge, half filled with dead leaves, and of- ten dry during the summer months. Unless they are absolutely swarming, some must have come from a distance to enjoy the treat. But how they found it out is to me a mystery ; especially as they had collected in the short space of four or five days. — R.L. King ; Grammar School, Truro, January 29th, 1846.
Descriptions of Ten New British Moths. By J.W. Douglas, Esq.
Sugar and assiduous collecting have within the last few years made the majority of the larger British Lepidoptera well known, and specimens more abundant, so that, comparatively, little remains to be done among them, except in new localities. But the smaller moths still offer a wide field for research, and judging from the number found
