192 PROCEEDIXGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



" there must have been pehigic animals, and Foraminifcra may 

 have lived at great depths in the track of the currents, but 

 ])robably no (deep-sea) invertebrates of a period older than the 

 Jura or Chalk existed, or, if they did exist, they did not wander 

 far from the Continental shelf. Their distribution was then, as 

 to-day, mainly a question of food. The animals of those times lived 

 upon the coast shelf, and while they and their predecessors remained 

 as fossils in the littoral beds of the earlier formations, their successors, 

 belonging either to the same or to allied genera, passed over into the 

 following period. The littoral belt is perhaps the most important 

 portion of tlie sea-floor, since within its limits the greatest changes 

 of light, heat, and motion occur" (p. 157); — and here too, I would 

 add, the greatest influences productive of change in species would 

 naturally be encountered by the denizens of the sea ; whilst those 

 in the deeper portions of the ocean, if deprived of many of the 

 advantages enjoyed by the dwellers along the shore, nevertheless 

 pass a safe, calm, and uneventful existence, with which the elements 

 of time and change have but little to do, and they might — assuming 

 the stability of such areas to have remained unchanged, which may 

 well be doubted — have preserved in their dim recesses representatives 

 of palaeozoic times living there down to the present day. 



The production, by Prince Albei't I. of Monaco, of the scientific results 

 accomplished on his yacht " Hirondelle," in 1887, published as six 

 fasciculi in quarto form, 1889-94, under the direction of the Baron de 

 Guerne, is an important addition to our knowledge of marine life. 

 Fascicule i. is a contribution to the Molluscan Fauna of the Azores, 

 by Philippe Dautzenberg. Of 84 species of Gastropoda 24 are entirely 

 new, never having been previously noticed fi"om the Azores ; 16 Pele- 

 cypoda are also recorded. Four plates are given, three being coloured. 

 Fasc. ii. is devoted to Sponges (with eleven plates) ; Fasc. iii. to the 

 Brachiopoda (with two plates) ; Fasc iv. to the Opisthobranchia 

 (with four plates) ; Fasc. v. to Bafhyphym Grimaldii (with one 

 plate) ; and Fasc. vi. to the Holothuria (with two plates). 



The results of the " Plankton Expedition," by the German Doctor, 

 Otto Kriimmel, 1892, are being published in a stylo fully equal to 

 that of the "Hirondelle." 



An important subject, bearing upon both the past and present 

 Life-history of our planet, to which the Mollusca have contributed 

 a very large share of facts — perhaps more than any other group — 

 is that of the Geographical Distribution of Animals. 



We know that at the present day the earth's surface may be 

 divided into a series of Zoological Regions, each having its own 

 distinctive fauna, as the Pala^arctic, the Ethiopian, the Indian, the 

 Australasian, the Nearctic, and the Neotropical. 



The sea, too, has its marine provinces, as — 1. the Arctic ; 

 2. the lioreal ; 3. the Celtic ; 4. Lusitanian ; 5. Aralo-Caspian ; 

 6. "W. African ; 7. S. African ; 8. Indo-Paeific ; 9. Australasian ; 

 10. Japonic; 11. Aleutian; 12. Californian ; 13. Panamic ; 14. 

 Peruvian ; 15. Antarctic ; 16. Patagouian ; 17. Caribbean ; 18. 

 Trans-Atlantic. 



