712 American Work in the Department of (September, 
the hitherto unrecognized fact that a fair proportion have a verti- 
cal range including both regions. wu. Of the species with great 
vertical range, the smallest part (ten per cent.) belong to boreal or 
cold water forms; the néxt larger (twenty per cent.) to tropical or 
warm water groups, while more than sixty belong to groups not 
specially characteristic of the /ttora/e of either region. ur. Of 
the species found in the abyssal region, without regard to their 
range above it, ten per cent. may be termed boreal, thirteen per 
cent. tropical, and more than seventy-five per cent, uncharacteris- 
tic generic forms. Iv. Since the tropical forms found belong to 
the same groups as the local littoral mollusk fauna, it is eminently 
probable that the abyssal regions have local faunz proper to their 
various portions, and that a universal exclusive abyssal mollusk 
fauna does not exist. v. The specific characters of many of the 
strictly abyssal species appear to exhibit a very remarkable. 
degree of variation between supposed specific limits, though it 
would seem as if the conditions under which they live must be 
remarkably uniform. This would indicate that the tendency to 
variation is less dependent upon changes in the existing environ- 
ment than has generally been assumed, if not entirely independent 
of it; and, conversely, that under uniform conditions (where there 
can be hardly any struggle for existence) the innumerable varia- 
tions which occur may coéxist with hardly any elimination, and 
the equilibrium of characters made temporarily stable by natural 
selection (which constitutes “ species”) may fail to be exhibited 
to a sufficient degree to permit us to take account of it. 
In the American Yournal of Science for November (XX, PP: 
390-403), Professor Verrill treats of the remarkable marine fauna 
occupying the outer banks off the southern coast of New Eng- 
land. This article is a preliminary to the more extended paper 
in the Proc. U. S. Nat. Museum, hereafter alluded to, and contains 
brief descriptions of two new genera and three new species of | 
Cephalopods, one new Pteropod, seventeen species and one new 
genus of Gasteropods, and two of acephalous Mollusca. Sev- 
eral of these appear to be of particular interest, and some seem 
remarkably close to those described from the Challenger collec- 
tion by Boog-Watson. The Calliostoma bairdii V. and S., 18 the 
Calltostoma psyche of the recorder, named but not describ 
preliminary report on the Blake dredgings off the gulf and 
Florida coasts in deep water. This lovely species was dredged 
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edinhis | 
