ARCTIC PROVINCE. Sa 
I. Arctic PROVINCE. 
The North Polar Seas contain but one assemblage of Mollusca, 
whose Southern limit is formed by the Aleutian Islands in tho 
Pacific, but in the North Atlantic is determined chiefly by the 
boundary of floating ice, descending as low as Newfoundland 
on the West, and thence rising rapidly to Iceland and the North 
Cape. A very complete general account of the Arctic Mollusca 
is given by Dr. Middendorff;* those of Greenland haye been 
catalogued and described by Otho Fabricius and Moller ;+ and 
more recently by Morch ;{ 158 species are enumerated by 
Middendorff, and 202 by Morch. Scattered notices occur in 
the Annals of Natural History,§ and the Supplements to the 
Narratives of the Arctic Voyagers,—Phipps, Scoresby, Franklin, 
Back, Ross, Parry, and Richardson. The existence of the same 
marine animals in the Kamtchatka Sea and Baffin’s Bay was 
long since held to prove at least a former North-West passage ; 
but the occurrence of recent sea-shells in banks far mland 
rendered it probable that even recent elevation of the land in 
Arctic America might have much reduced the passage. During 
the ‘‘ Glacial period,”’ this Arctic Sea, with the same fauna, ex- 
tended over Britain ; over Northern [urope, as far as the Alps 
and Carpathians; and over Siberia, and a considerable part of 
North America. The shells now living in the Arctic Seas, are 
found fossil in the deposits of ‘‘ Northern Drift,” over all these 
countries ; and a few of the species yet linger within the bounds 
of the two next provinces, especially in tracts of unusual depth. 
The Arctic shells have mostly a thick greenish epidermis (p. 33); 
they occur in very great abundance, and are remarkably subject 
to yariation of form, a circumstance attributed by Professor H. 
Forbes to the influence of the mixture of fresh water produced 
by the melting of great bodies of snow and ice. 
ARCTIC SHELL-FISH. 
R. Russian Lapland. F. Finmark. I. Iceland. G. Greenland. D. Davis Straits (west 
coast). B. Behring’s Straits. O. Ochotsk. * British species (living). ** British 
species (fossil). 
Octopus granulatus. G. ep amoena. G. 
Cirroteuthis Milleri. G. *Ommastrephes todarus. F. Newf, 
Rossia palpebrosa, G. P. Regent Inlet, 
Onychoteuthis Bergii. F. B. Limacina arctica, G. O. 
aa Fabricii, G. 
* Malaco-zoologia Rossica; Mem. del’ Acad. Imp. des Sc. Petersb, T. 6, pt. 2, 1849, 
7 Index Molluscorum Groenlandie. Hafn. 1842. 
t Fortegnelse over Gronlands Bléddyr in H. Rink: Grénland geographisk og statise 
tisk beskrevet, ii. Bind. 1857. 
§ Hancock, An, Nat. Hist. vol. 18, p. 823, pl. 5, 
Ds 
