72 Dr Fleming on the Climale of the Arctic Regions. 



about which he was speculating, and even with the authors by 

 whom they have been described. 



Mr Conybeare next passes on to the Crinoidea. There is a 

 large species, a native of the West Indian seas, and a species 

 inhabiting our own seas, so minute (surely he has never seen 

 Thompson's figure or description !) " that it cannot be ascer- 

 tained to belong to the family at all, without a powerful lens."" 

 All the fossil species are large, and hence the analogy he sup- 

 poses is in his favour. But Mr Conybeare should have been 

 aware, since the discovery of the Encrinus Milleri of that in- 

 defatigable zoologist the Rev. Lansdown Guilding, that there 

 is a small species as well as a large one in the Caribbaean seas, 

 and that in consequence of the facts ascertained by Thompson 

 and Guilding, the Pentacrinus and Comatula must be united 

 in one group, a circumstance which the frontispiece of Miller's 

 Crinoidea might have intimated ; and he may, at the same time, 

 be informed, that a large and well developed species of the lat- 

 ter is now before me from North Lat. '72"- 



My opjwnent very prudently passes over the bivalve and 

 unchambered univalve shells, and makes a stand under the pro- 

 tection of the Nautilidce. " The few existing species of this 

 class (he says) are confined to warm latitudes." Where did he 

 learn this dogma, uttered with so much complacency ? In 

 Turton's Conchological Dictionary there are 24 species, and in 

 my " British Animals" 39 species of the cla.ss, enumerated as 

 natives of our own seas ! " Turpe est in patria vivere et pa- 

 triam nescire." 



Having hitherto conducted the chace in a more rapid man- 

 ner than was probably suitable to the resources of the pursued, 

 we shall slacken our pace for a few moments while we discuss 

 the merits of his arguments derived from Reptiles. Of the Cro- 

 codilidce, he says, " This family actually includes many species, 

 and is exclusively limited to warm latitudes." Some of the 

 species are certainly natives of warm latitudes, but there is here 

 a leaning' observable in some species towards colder regions. 

 The crocodile of the Nile can surely bear a greater degree of 

 cold than the one which inhabits Senegal, though probably less 

 than the caiman of the Mississippi, for, according to Cuvier, 

 '' cettc espece va assez loin au nord ; elle remonte le Mississippi 

 jusqu' a la Riviere Rouge. M. Dunbar et le Docteur Hunter 



