358 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST, [Vol, Yi, 



and the artist accompanying the expedition was able to takq 

 (several sketches of it. A large Oniscia, shaped like 0. cancellatoi 

 Sow., but with an orange inner lip (0. Dennisonif), some speci- 

 mens of FJiorus Indicus Gmel., a magnificent new species of 

 Jjatiaxis, with many exquisite specimens of Fleurotoma, Fusus^ 

 Jilurex, Scalaria, and three or four of Fedicularia sicula Sw.,. 

 with iunumerable Pteropods and Terebratulinse, rewarded these 

 ^' burglars of the deep." The Professor was delighted, and it was 

 with reluctance he abandoned so rich a field in order to secure his 

 passing through the Straits of Magellan at a right season. 



Barbados, January 26, — From ^'Nature.'/ 



Agassiz's Deep-Sea Explorations. — 3fore about the trilo- 

 hites, — The following letter has been received by Prof. Peirce of 

 Harvard College from Prof. Agassiz, giving interesting details 

 respecting some of the results of the researches of the Hassler 

 jExpedition : 



*<Rlo, on board the Hassler, Feb. 12, 1872, 



<' My Dear Peirce, — On January 18, Pourtales dredged ta 

 a very late hour during the night, the weather being more favor- 

 able for this kind of work than it had been at any previous time- 

 since we left Boston. As I did not dare to remain exposed to. 

 the dew, I missed the most interesting part of the proceedings,, 

 about which Pourtales will report himself. The next morning, 

 however, I had an opportunity of overhauling the specimens 

 brought up by the dredge, and to my great delight I discovered 

 among them another of those types of past ages, only found now- 

 adays in deep water. The case is entirely new, as the specimen 

 in question belongs to the Pectinidal, a family the relations of 

 which to earlier geological formations have thus far presented 

 nothing especially interesting or instructive, except perhaps the 

 fact that the type of neither is exclusively cretaceous. I wi^h had 

 within my reach the means of making a full statement of the 

 facts; but I have not the necessary books of reference, and must 

 in this case trust entirely to my memory. 



Among the most remarkable species of Pecten, there is a very 

 small one, figured in Goldfuss under the name of Pecten paradoxus, 

 if I remember rightly, and found in the Lias of Germany, which 

 I have always been inclined to consider as the type of a distinct 

 genus on account of its structural peculiarities. As yet nothing 



