FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 
301 
datus over to Gibraltar is known. The Sorex Etruscus, otherwise an ex- 
clusively Italian animal, is to be found in Algiers ; the fox, which is 
lighter in Italy than in Germany, appears in Algiers as a still lighter va- 
riety ; and it may be also worth mentioning, with respect to the reptiles, 
which are less exposed to the influence of man, that the new ' Erpetology 
of Algiers,' by Strauch, contains well-known South-European species, such 
as Cistudo Eurojpcea, Lacerta viridis, Troj)idonotus nafn'x, Sana esculenta, 
etc. ; and that animals like the Cliamoeleon Africanus appear also in Spain 
aud Sicily. With regard to the beetles, Erichson, having examined the 
collections of Mor. Wagner, says: — "A number of species belong also 
to the middle-European fauna ; a larger number extend over all the 
coast-lands of the Mediterranean Sea, a few inclusive, but the most of them 
exclusive of Egypt, which, in its fauna, exhibits more of the middle- 
African characteristics. Most of the species possessed by Algiers are 
identical with those of the opposite Italian islands, Sardinia and Sicily, 
but less so with the mainland of Italy ; and the same is the case with the 
Spanish peninsula and the opposite territory of Morocco ; whilst it is very 
often the case that the Spanish- Morocco and the Italo-Algerian species 
show (?) comparatively an analogy between themselves."* The like pheno- 
mena are repeated in the land-snails. According to Forbes, the concor- 
dance of the Morocco snails with those of Spain is so great, that even on 
the heights the Spanish mountain-snails appear. The Glandina Algira is 
to be found, in the smaller form, from the valley of Tsonzo to Constan- 
tinople ; whilst the larger variety connects Lower Italy, Sicily, and Algiers.f 
Other South-European species which seem to have originated from the 
east, — as, for instance, the Cyclostoma elegans, — are, on the contrary, 
wanting in Algeria ; whilst the Cj^clostonia sulcatum appears in the Italian 
islands, at Malta, in Southern France, South-eastern Spain, and also in 
Northern Africa. It seems also that all the South-European river mussels 
are to be found in Algiers.;}; 
With regard to the vegetable kingdom, and in order not to multiply 
excessivel}^ examples, it maj^ suffice to record here the Chamceros humilis^ 
and its scattering over the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. 
After all that it is not surprising that Andr. Wagner, supported by 
another series of arguments, so far back as the year 1846 wrote : — " The 
Mediterranean Sea, in a natural-history point of view, separates the north- 
ern border of Africa in a far inferior degree from Europe, than it is on 
the other hand separated by the Sahara from the principal stock of the 
.African continent. According to all accounts the Sahara was once over- 
flowed by the sea, owing to which Barbary became one of the Mediterranean 
islands. "§ 
The present land-fauna teaches us to consider the Canary Islands, Mo- 
rocco, Algiers, and South-western F^urope, as a formerly connected conti- 
nent, which, according to Forbes, probably extended as far as Cornwall. 
We call his fauna the Lusitanian fauna. We shall now proceed with M. 
Anca's communications. 
In the year 1860, M. Anca made known || his discovery in some bone- 
caverns in Sicily, of a quantity of determinable animal remains, which 
were accompanied by land- and sea-shells of species still living in that 
country, — as the Helix aspersa and the Cardium edule. The richest list, 
* Arch. f. Naturgesch. \-ii. Jahrg. 2 Bd. p. 153. 
t Marteur, ^Vul•temb. Jahresh. xi. p. 244. % Tbidera, pp. 249, 257. 
§ Transactions of the Royal Acad, of Sc. Bavaria, ii. cl. iv. vol. ii. sect. p. 11. 
II Bull. Soc. Geol. p. 680. 
