LAIMIU.I.IHRANCHIATA. II 



(43°37'N.L., 2°oS'W.L.; 250— 790 fm.). On the western side of the Atlantic it is distributed from Hatteras 

 to the southernmost part of Lal^rador'). 



Ostreidae. 



Ostrea edulis I.inne. 

 [I c e 1 a n d. | 

 In "Brit. Conchol." vol. II, 1863, p. 40 Jeffreys gives Iceland as the northern boundary 

 for the distribution of the oyster-) and Mohr as his authority. If we look up the work of the latter: 

 "Forsog til en Islandsk Naturhistorie", 1786, we find Ostrea cdiiiis mentioned (p. 130), it is true, but 

 with the addition, that it "is said to occur in Hvalfjorden" according to E. Olafsen. But in the work 

 of Eggert Olafsen and Biarne Povelsen: -'Reise igjennem Island" (2nd part, 1772, p. loio) the 

 record cited is followed by the remark "but we have not seen it." As no other naturalist has found 

 the oyster at Iceland since that time, it may be deleted from the fauna. 



[The Faeroes.] 



From here the collection of the Zoological Museum possesses quite a small oyster (length 

 8"""., height 10 """.) attached to a shell of Modiola inod/oliis and still containing the dried-up soft 

 parts; the specimen was sent in by Sysselmand IMiiller in 1873. 



So far as I know, this is the only evidence we have, that the oyster may occur at the FceroesJ). 

 It is hardly credible, however, that adulf oysters occur at the islands, as they would scarcely have 

 escaped attention. Nor can the small specimen referred to be considered to have been transported 

 here as larva by oceanic currents, as no current runs from the English or other European coasts to 

 the Fteroes-i). But experiments have perhaps at some time been made to "introduce" oysters at the Faeroes. 



Pectinidae. 

 Pecten pusio Liune. 



Ostrea pusio I^iune, Syst. Nat. ed. 12, i, 2, 1767, p. 1146. — Pcctai pusio Jeffreys, Brit. Conchol. 

 II, 1863, p. 51, PI. 22, fig. I. 



Pcctcn (Hinnitcs) disfortus Morch, Vidensk. Medd. naturhist. Forening 1867, p. 98. 



1) In a geologically very late (.postglacial) period Anomia sqiiamiila was distributed to West Greenland, where it is 

 now extinct; cf. Ad. S.Jensen: On the fossil quaternarj' Mollusc-Fauna of Greenland (Medd. oni Gronland, XXIX, 1909, 

 p. 293); and Ad. S.Jensen and P. Harder: Post-glacial changes of climate in arctic regions as revealed by investigations 

 on marine deposits (Postglaziale Klimaveranderungen, Stockholm 1910, p. 399). 



2) The same statement is repeated in Proc. Zool. Society, 1879, p. 555. 



3) In his "Fauuula Moll. Insul. Faroensium" (p. 99) Morch cites the following passage from Landt: "it (i.e. Anomia 

 sgiiamula) is attached to small stones on the bottom at the same place as "the small oyster, Ostrea nu'nuta", which he has fished 

 up from the bottom of Vestmanhavnsfjorden close to the Vaago side'' and adds to this: "what we are to vinderstand by 

 Landt's Ostrea minuta is not clear; Landt has perhaps overlooked the hole in the shell of an Anomia, or he may even have 

 meant a distorted Saxicava" . 



4) The Fsroes are washed by the Gulf Stream, but it is improbable that the pelagic life of the oyster is of such 

 long duration, that the larva could be carried the long distance across the Atlantic. Further, the specimen in question 

 belongs to the European oyster (Ostrea edulis), as the muscular impression is white, not dark as in the American Ostrea 

 virginica (cf. Whitea ve.s, Catal. of the marine Invertebrata of Eastern Canada, 1901, p. 116). 



2* 



