244 Annals of Natural History, or 



Owen also considers it in all probability to be allied. Lastly, 

 Mr. Owen referred other teeth subsequently found by Mr. 

 Colchester in the same deposit to insectivorous bats. The 

 next article is Mr. Owen's description of the above in- 

 teresting relics. 



In the December Number of this publication, the first paper 

 is a description of a shell bank in the Irish sea, by Edward 

 Forbes, Esq. Mr. Forbes has been in the habit of making 

 observations on the character and number of species resort- 

 ing to this scollop bank, which lies five miles from the northern 

 coast of the Isle of Man, his attention being chiefly paid to 

 the manner in which the varieties of molluscs live and associate 

 together. The bank is about twenty fathoms below the sur- 

 face of the sea, and is thickly covered with Pecten opercula- 

 rs, among which there are a few common oysters and other 

 Pectens, as P. maximus and P. varius. The edge of the 

 bank is gravelly, and chiefly occupied with univalve shells, as 

 Murex erinaceus, Trochus zizyphinus, and Natica alderi. 

 Between the bank and the shore, but nearer the latter, there 

 is a great tract of fifteen fathoms in depth, where Laminaria 

 and other marine plants grow, and which is covered with 

 stones of considerable size, consisting of porphyry, sienite, 

 granite, slate, and limestone. 



The testaceous mollusca here most abundant are Pecten 

 opercularis, P. distortus, Modiola vulgaris, Hiatella rugosa 

 Chiton cinereus, Buccinum undatum, Trochus zizyphinus, 

 T. tumidus, Nassa macula, Lottia pulchella. Mr. Forbes 

 then enumerates lists of the different species that visit the 

 bank, and notices whether they are gregarious or solitary, re- 

 gular, or only accidental visitors. Mr. Forbes' object in con- 

 ducting these observations are no less with a view to the ad- 

 vancement of our knowledge of the habits of animals, than of 

 their subservience to geological science. Supposing the bank 

 converted into a fossil bed, the relative proportion of bivalve 

 to univalve remaining would depend on the part of it exa- 

 mined. Of Echinodermata we should probably, Mr. Forbes 



