Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/269

Rh time it is most excellent eating. Thousands are procured from a small space of ground with ease, and hundreds of natives are supported in abundance and luxury by them for many weeks together. It sometimes happens that the flood does not occur every year, and in this case the "eu-kod-ko" lie dormant until the next, and a year and a half would thus be passed below the surface. I have often seen them dug out of my garden, or in my wheat field, by men engaged in digging ditches for irrigation. The floods usually overflow the river-flats in August or September, and recede again in February or March."

"According to Nicolet, Crayfishes are found in the rivers, brooks, and even in the forests of southern Chile, where they live in holes in the ground, around the eutrance of which they construct earthworks in the shape of a cone nearly a foot in height. As is well known, Cambarus diogenes, Girard, erects similar mud towers or "chimneys" in the United States, and Mr. P.R. Uhler tells me that Cambarus dubius, Faxon, has the same habit in Western Virginia. Titian R. Peale informed Girard that he had observed mud chimneys, altogether similar to those of C. diogenes, along the Rio Magdalena in New Grenada, several hundred miles from the seashore. But the builders of these chimneys in New Grenada still remain unknown to science. In this connection it is worthy of note that the earliest mention of adobe towers erected at the mouth of crustacean burrows occurs in Molina's work on the Natural History of Chile, p. 208."

have received the Report of the Council of the Zoological Society of London for 1897, which proves the Society, both scientifically and financially, to be in a highly prosperous condition. In the Gardens at Regent's Park the principal new building is the Ostrich and Crane house, commenced in 1896 and finished in March last year. During the past summer also a new glass house for reception of the Society's collection of Tortoises has been built adjoining the Reptile house at a total cost of £464 14s. 8d., which amount, however, will ultimately be lessened by the sum of £150 which the Hon. Walter Rothschild, F.Z.S., who is especially interested in these animals, has kindly contributed towards it. The removal of the Tortoises into their new house, which seems in every way adapted for their requirements, enables the public to view them with much greater facility than was the case in the building formerly allotted to them on the other side of the Gardens. It is also of great advantage to have the whole of the specimens of living Reptiles and Batrachians placed under the same care, and arranged in the same part of the Gardens.

The total number of deaths of animals in the Gardens during the year 1897 was 1196 as against 986 in 1896. This increase of 210 is chiefly due to the large number of small Reptiles received during the year. The