they still enjoy in the Indian seas. _ 
378 Miscellanies. 
still inhabitants of the Mediterranean. The conchologist remarks 
that individuals deposited in the interior of the earth, surpass, in 
medium and size, their living types. It cannot however be doubted, 
notwithstanding such a. difference in dimensions, that the species are 
identical, since the living individuals, sometimes, though rarely, at- 
tain to the size of the fossil; and the preservation of the latter is so 
perfect that they still retain their color, which furnishes another means _ 
of comparison, = ae “e 
‘In leaving the sea and advancing into regions less disturbed by 
modern volcanos, there are found in the Sub-Appenine hills some 
species still living in the Mediterranean, mingled with multitudes: of 
other kinds now extinct, and which present indubitable indications 
of a warmer climate. Several kinds are common to the Sub-Ap- 
penine hills, the Mediterranean, and the Indian‘Ocean. The fossils 
correspond in size with their fellows within the tropics, while the in- 
dividuals of the same species now in the Mediterranean, are small, 
degenerated and “stunted by the absence of those conditions which 
No observations of a contrary nature have occurred to neutralize 
our conclusions, neither are there found associated in these groups, 
individuals appertaining to species confined withisi the arctic regions. 
On the contrary when we can identify these fossil shells with living 
species foreign to the Mediterranean, it is not in the icy sea, Dut 
between the tropics that we must look for them. eon 
- Mr. Lyell has carefully examined several hundred species of shells 
« obtained in Sicily at the height of one thousand feet, among” which 
is a great number of kinds still living in the Mediterranean; the dif- 
ference of size being very striking in the greater number of these 
tig . 
‘two classes. * | 
Some interesting observations, formerly made by Péron and Le- 
sueur, stated in the Annales du Museum, T. XV, p. 287, and which 
Mr. Lyell has not cited, confirm his opinion’ that the greater size of 
individual shells of the same species, is an indication of a change 
climate. ‘These naturalists have remarked that every species of ma- 
rine animals has.received a distinct location, confined 'to certain parts 
of the ocean, and that in those positions they’ are found to be Jarger 
and more beautiful. In proportion as they are removed from this 
y, they degenerate, and are at length extinct. 
2 Haliotes gigantea for example, which in Van Dieman’s land, 
s the length of fifteen to twenty centimetres, suffers in its nis 
