166 APPENDIX. 



found generally throughout the arctic seas. In swimming it 

 brings the tips of its fins almost into contact, first on one side 

 and then on the other, I kept several of them alive in a 

 glass of sea water for about a month, when they gradually 

 wasted away and died." — Arctic Regions, i, 544. Phipps 

 remarks : " Our fishermen call them by the name of whale 

 food, and are of the same opinion " with Martens, who 

 says they are the chief food of the whalebone whale (App., 

 p. 196). 



LiMACiNA AKCTicA — Snail Slime-Fish. Martens, p. 136. 



Found in immense quantities near the coast of Spitz- 

 bergen, but seems to be rare, according to Dr. Scoresby, out 

 of sight of land. Sir James Clarke Ross remarks that, on 

 Parry's Polar expedition, this species and the preceding 

 were very numerous " as far as 81° f N., towards the end 

 of August, affording abundance of food for the numerous 

 water fowl which, at this season, are preparing to migrate 

 with their young to the southward" (App,, p. 206). In 

 Greenland, according to Otho Fabricius {Faun. Grcenl., p. 

 389), it forms the food of whales, and when eaten by the 

 Cottus Scorpio, renders the fish insipid as food to the natives. 

 That author gives the following account of its habits, the 

 translation is that of Dr. Johnston, in his Introduction to 

 Conchology. " The shell is its boat, which the snail rows 

 admirably through the water by the regularly timed strokes 

 of the raised fins. In this act the open extremity of the shell 

 is the prow, the opposite end occupies the place of a poop, 

 and the margin of the body whorl resembles and performs 

 the office of the keel. I have often seen it with admiration 

 and pleasure. He can move in a retrograde manner. When 

 weary with rowing, or when touched, the little boatman con- 

 tracts its oary fins, and drawing itself within the shell, sinks 

 to the bottom, where it rests a short space, cither upon the 

 keel, or the prow, or the vertex, but never on the umbilicus. 



