OF CONCHOLOGY. - 29 



1260 fathoms. Dr. Wallich also adduces his discovery, at a 

 depth of 682 fathoms (4092 feet), in lat. 63° 31' N., long. 13° 

 41' W., of two testaceous Annelids, "whioh he assumed to belong 

 to " knoAvn shallow-water forms," as further evidence of an ex- 

 tensive submergence of the North Atlantic sea-bed. These An- 

 nelids were named by him Serpula vitrea and Spirorhis nautiloi- 

 des. But Professor Sars disputes their being shallow-water spe- 

 cies. The former he id:ntifies with his Serpula ijolita [=Pla- 

 eostegus tridentatus, Fabricius ;) the latter is referred by Morcli* 

 to the iSoyula spirorbis of Linne. The one is regarded by Sars 

 as a deep water and not littoral species, being found on the Nor- 

 wegian coast in 20 to 300 fathoms ; the other has a wide bathy- 

 metrical range, from low-water mark to 300 fathoms. I suspect, 

 moreover, that there has been some mistake in the determination 

 of the Spirorhis, and that it belongs to ;i nother species than that 

 to which Wallich has assigned it. As to the accuracy of his 

 statement that he procured living starfishes from a depth of 1260 

 fathoms, under the circumstances which he has described (viz., 

 " convulsively embracing a portion of the sounding-line, which 

 had been paid out in excess of the already ascertained depth, 

 and rested for a sufficient period at the bottom to permit of their 

 attaching themselves to it,") no reasonable doubt can be enter- 

 tained. I have myself seen a number of Antedon (or Comatula) 

 celticus clinging to the rope several feet from the dredge when it 

 was taken up from about 60 fathoms. These starfishes must 

 have crawled up the rope while the dredge was in motion or be- 

 ing hauled in, because no part of the rope had laid on the ground. 

 Dr. Carpenter tells me that Antedoii rosaceus has the same 

 habit of crawling up and clasping a rope in shallow water. 



The greatest depth marked on the Admiralty charts in any 

 part of the Hebridean sea-bed which I examined is 132 fathoms. 

 Here I got several kinds of living Foraminifera. Nineteen years 

 ago I dredged near the same ground, in 116 fathoms, a fine 

 cluster of one of the compound Tunicata, Diazona Hebridica, of 

 «i greenioh-pink color. 1 do not mention this as a great or even 

 considerable depth. Sarsf and Koren| have done much more on 

 the coasts of Norway ; their dredging-explorations extended to 

 300 fathoms. In the paper from which I have extracted the 

 above remarks as to the distribution of animal life in the depths 

 of the sea, Professor Sars has enumerated no less than 52 spe- 

 cies and distinct varieties of animals found by him at the depth 

 of 300 fathoms. They may be thus classified : — Porifera (Sponges) 



*Naturhist. Tidsskr. 1863: " Revisio critica Serpulidarum." 

 t Reise i Lofoten og Finmarken, 1849. 

 X Nyt. Mag. Naturw. 1856. 



