THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



107 



seas around Madeira and the Canary Islands, where 

 able naturalists have laboured diligently and suc- 

 cessfully, our account of the fauna of the Lusi- 

 tanian region would be in a great measure hypothe- 

 tical. 



The most important and extensive contribution 

 to our knowledge of the invertebrate animals of the 

 Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal which has as 

 yet been made public, is the account of the dredg- 

 ing researches of Mr. Mac Andrew, communicated 

 by that indefatigable friend of submarine research, 

 to the natural history section of the British Asso- 

 ciation, during the meeting at Edinburgh in August, 

 1850. In this document a record is presented of 

 all the species of mollusca, their precise depth, 

 locality, and nature of the ground upon which they 

 were taken, with notes of their relative frequency 

 and abundance, and notices of the animals of other 

 tribes found along with them. The stations ex- 

 amined, which are especially connected with the 

 region under review, were the Bay of Vigo in Gal- 

 licia (the investigator had previously explored part 

 of the coast of Asturias), Lisbon, and Cascaes, south 

 of the rock of Lisbon ; the neighbourhood of Faro 

 in Algarve ; various points between the mouth of 

 the Guadalquiver and Cape Trafalgar, and the 

 Straits of Gibraltar. 



The general results of these researches may be 

 stated as follows : on the north coast of Spain 

 bordering the Bay of Biscay, we find littoral 



