435
ARCTIC MOLLUSCAN FAUNA.
By H.W. Feilden, C.M.Z.S., F.G.S.,
Naturalist to the late Arctic Expedition.
Two papers have lately been published, one in 'The Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' "On the Recent Mollusca collected during the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76," by Mr. Edgar A. Smith; the other, "On the Post-tertiary Fossils from Grinnell Land," by Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys, read at the Plymouth meeting of the British Association, 1877. I am much indebted to both of these gentlemen for their determinations of the species brought back by the Arctic Expedition, and in their able hands I leave the nomenclature. I must, however, dissent from a portion of the general views expressed by both. Mr. Smith writes:—"It is somewhat disappointing, considering that unexplored regions were searched, that only a single new form was procured. The entire collection consists of thirly-four species. This may appear a very small number; but the difficulty experienced in collecting in such northern climates in a great measure accounts for such small results. It by no means proves that there is any great scarcity of molluscan life in the regions investigated. In all probability further research will discover many more known forms, thus showing that the fauna northward does not change very materially from that existing further south in Davis Strait." Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys writes:—"I cannot help sharing Mr. Smith's expression of disappointment with the conchological results of the Expedition. The number of post-tertiary, as well as of recent, species is very scanty. In analogous or apparently similar cases of so-called 'glacial' and raised sea-beds in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Canada, which I have examined, I collected in two or three hours a greater number of fossil species than those procured in the Expedition."
I cannot help thinking that the feeling of disappointment experienced by both of these naturalists arises from their not having taken into due consideration the physical conditions appertaining to the area from whence these collections were derived, and also not having sufficiently estimated the results of prior expeditions to the same quarter of the globe.
