Professor Edward Forbes on Marine Zoology. 387 



beings accordingly. During the 145 detailed observations which 

 form the basis of this Report, fishes were taken by the dredge not 

 half a dozen times, and in three instances the fish taken was one of 

 the rarest and most curious of British vertebrata, the Amphiozua 

 lanceolatus. Although always carefully looked for and noted, the 

 bones of fishes were never observed among the contents of the 

 dredge above throe times, and in two of those instances (at a depth 

 of 40 and 50 fathoms mud in the western coast of Scotland) the 

 remains consisted of otolites only, reminding us of similar relics in 

 the crag of the east of England. Of terrestrial vertebrata I have 

 never seen a trace ; and though no small number of the human race 

 have diffused their bodies over our sea bed, no human bone has oc- 

 curred to me in dredging. When very near shore, and in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of a town, broken bottles and old shoes have strewn 

 the sea bed, affording unquestionable evidence of the presence of 

 man on the neighbouring shores. Doubtless, by dredging close to 

 towns, in harbours, and in estuaries, like the Mersey, where there are 

 great cities on the banks, numerous relics of such a description, as 

 well as the bones of animals, might be taken, but immediate proxi- 

 mity to towns is avoided by the dredger. 



On one occasion, recorded in the dredging papers from the An- 

 glesey coast, the shell of a common snail (Helix aspersa) was dredged 

 at some distance from shore in the entrance of the Menai Straits. 

 It was covered by Balani and Serpuke, and inhabited by a hermit 

 crab. Naturalists familiar with the active movements of the Paguri 

 can readily conceive to what a distance a land shell may be trans- 

 ported under such circumstances, and at length become embedded 

 along with the remains of creatures of very different origin and 

 habits. 



Fossil Remains taken in the Dredge. — In no instance have 

 we taken the remains of fossil vertebrata when dredging on the 

 western shores of Britain, but many times have met with fossil 

 testacea. These are of the pleistocene epoch, and often it requires 

 a practised eye to distinguish between them and the dead shells 

 of existing mollusca associated with them ; indeed there are some 

 species as Astarte crebricostataj Natica Grcenlandica., Panop<Ba 

 Norvegica, Tellina proxima, and Scalaria Groenlandicaf enume- 

 rated in the preceding pages, which, whilst from various considera- 

 tions we hold the weight of evidence to be in favour by their 

 presence as living species in our seas, are yet under suspicion, and 

 are not admitted by all British conchologists. In several localities 

 among the Hebrides, especially in the Kyles of Bute, and in the sea 

 between Baza and Applecross, quantities of pleistocene fossils may 

 be dredged ; at the former place Panoptea Norvegica is common, 

 as pointed out by Mr Smith, and in the latter there occur numerous 

 fossil valves of Pecten islandicus and Danicus^ the large sulcated 

 variety of Saxicava rugosay Astarte elliptica,Ledu truncata &nd Rosy 



