Post-tertiary Fossils and Recent Mollusca. 241 



European Seas, and the remainder, as far as our present 

 knowledge extends, are exclusively Greenlandic." Now I 

 find, by analyzing his list, that out of the 34 species no less 

 than 28 have been recorded as European and American, 2 as 

 European and not American, 1 as American and not European, 

 and 8 as exclusively Greenlandic. 



The Crustacea collected in the Arctic Expedition have been 

 most carefully worked out by Mr. Miers, of the British 

 Museum, and published in the ' Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History ' for July and August 1877. The result 

 shows that out of 30 species of Crustacea brought home, 28 

 are European (Iceland, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, Britain), 

 and 16 only are American ; 12 species are Greenlandic and 

 European, but not American ; and 2 only are Greenlandic and 

 American (one of the latter doubtful) , but not European. 



There can be no question that marine animals, especially 

 those of the Invertebrate kind, abound in the Polar Ocean as 

 far north as it has been explored. i\.ll waiters on the natural 

 history of the arctic seas agree in this ; and I can personally 

 testify to the fact, with respect to Davis Strait, in comparison 

 with other parts of the North Atlantic. In the late Arctic or 

 Polar Expedition Capt Markham and Commander Parr found 

 several specimens of a shrimp-like crustacean {Anonyx nugax 

 of Phipps) and Foraminifera at the depth of 72 fathoms in 

 83° 19' N. lat. The expedition did not get further than 83° 

 20' 26", being about a mile and half beyond the place where 

 those marine animals were found. Professor Torell, in his 

 essay on the Mollusca of Spitzbergen (which lies between 

 76° 30' and 81° 7' N. lat.), says that the seas there teem 

 with life, and that phosphorescent animals on the sui'face 

 are so numerous that, while sailing during the night, one 

 could clearly distinguish a ray of light in the dark wake of 

 the ship. Scoresby had given a similar account of the lumi- 

 nosity of the arctic seas in equally high latitudes. Sir George 

 Nares, in his official Report of the Arctic Expedition, did not 

 allude to the subject — although he mentioned that early in 

 June, 1876, ducks and geese passed in small flocks of about a 

 dozen, flying towards the N.W. from the winter quarters of 

 the ' Alert,' in 82° 24' N. lat. ; and it must be recollected that 

 these ducks and geese subsist entirely on marine animals. I 

 am therefore at a loss to know upon what grounds Sir 

 Rutherford Alcock, the President of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, stated, in his Address on the 2Sth of last May, as a 

 " fact that animal marine life almost ceases to exist in the 

 ice-covered Polar sea," and that " the PaUeocrystic sea is a 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser 4, Vol. xx. 17 



