92 PEOFESSOR EDWARD FORBES. 



and Forbes adds the dead-nettle, the avens, the toad-flax, the cross- 

 leaved bedstraw, and a few other plants ; but, considering the 

 small extent of the ground, this is not remarkable. One of the bedstraws 

 (Galium vennn) is so profuse that the air in July is filled with its 

 perfume.* To the relations of the Llanx Flora and Fauna we shall 

 again advert hereafter. There is, perhaps, greater affinity of the Flora 

 to that of the nearest Scotch or English lands than to that of North 

 Wales ; thus, one of the few sub-alpme plants assigned to the island, 

 Saxifraga aizoides, is rather an English than a Welsh plant. 



Contrax-y to what we have observed as regards the island flora 

 generally, few spots are more productive in marine productions of the 

 animal kingdom, and the Manx mollusca were especially studied by 

 Forbes, and that as found at different depths, or in what he termed 

 bathymetrical zones — littoral, laminariau, coraUine, infra-medial, and 

 abyssic. The last he had little opportunity of examining, and erroneously 

 concluded that life soon ceased in it. Forbes considered that the Irish 

 Sea is a kind of neutral ground, zoologically speaking, and his own island 

 is somewhat curiously situated in the centre of it ; but there are fewer 

 of his Lusitanian species of mollusca than of plants, many Atlantic or 

 western species, and a few of a south-British character ; the generality 

 may be said to be rather Celtic especially than European, with a small 

 per-centage of boreal species. Forbes also paid great attention to the 

 animals themselves in contx-adistinction to their shells, and in his later 

 works to their geological distribution. In 1838 he published hia 

 " Malaoologia Monensis," and in 1853 the " British Mollusca," in conjunc- 

 tion with Mr. Hanley. In the Malaoologia he teaches that " a species is 

 defined, unalterable, original, approaching but never uniting. Varieties 

 are forms depending on local or accidental causes, diverging fx'om the 

 normal type, but often, and with facility, returning to it." Would he 

 have spoken so decidedly in these daj's ? 



In Douglas market may often be seen at least a score of different 

 kinds of fish, so bountiful ax'e our seas to the island, set as it were in 

 their centx-e. Forbes dx-edged off Ballaugh, where, however, at the 

 present time, thex-e are fewer facilities for doing so than at Ramsey. 

 The Ballaugh soallop-bed is about four miles out, in twenty or thirty 

 fathoms, and with deeper water on each side ; siuxilar x-eefs occur off 

 Maugliold Head and Laxey, and these may be easily dx-edged by the aid 

 of the Ramsey boatmen. The bottom off Douglas is different, being 

 coralline, with beds of Pectunculi. Port Erin is a good locality for 

 the Natm-alist, the fishing lines and lobster pots bringing up many 

 interesting specimens. 



Of laud and fresh-water shells. Helix as^persa abounds in the island, 

 H. lapidioida seems scax-ce. Limax gagatrs was found near Peel by Fox'bes, 

 but he did not detect the minute Achatina. Many of the larger 

 Limncei, as well as Anodon, Paludina, and Cyclostoma are absent, 

 as they are mostly from Ireland and the Nox-th of Britain, but 

 rather at home in the south, seeming as if they had invaded England 



• Forbes perceived the speoiflc value of the variations in British Pclygalse, and 

 the very diflerent forms which Euphrasia takes in some situations. 



