INFERIOR ANIMALS. Our information is still very incomplete so far as relates to the molluscs, the arachnida, and the insects which inhabit the frigid zone. The Alpine snail (_Helix Alpicola_), so remarkable for its transparency, appears to be the sole mollusc which, in certain localities, attains to an elevation of 7000 feet. It is, however, surpassed by the earthworm, which is not only distributed over the surface of every country, but ascends to the snowy summits of the loftiest mountains. Few animals have their geographical distribution so extended both horizontally and vertically; and only some species of spiders and millepeds keep company with the earthworm. Among the other inhabitants of the snows have also been observed a dozen species of butterflies,--nearly all diurnal,--for the phalænæ (?), or nocturnal Lepidoptera, appear to be much more sensible to the cold. M. Agassiz saw the "Little Vulcan" (_Vanessa urticæ_) fluttering in the snowy desert which borders on the glacier of Aar, as if it were completely in its element. The wings of the majority of these butterflies are sombre-coloured; their caterpillars live upon the auriculas, and seem to accomplish their metamorphoses in regions uninhabitable to us. The leaf-wasp (_Tenthredo spinacula_) appears to deposit its larvæ, at a height of nearly 10,000 feet, in the galls of the Alpine rose (_rhododendron ferrugineum_ and _rhododendron hirsutum_.) * * * * * The coleoptera have also numerous representatives in the region of perpetual snows, with this difference--equally characteristic of other animals--that, upon the southern declivity, they ascend 1000 to 1500 feet higher than on the northern. We may mention, as specially distributed in the topmost zone of the Alpine world:-- The _Chrysomela salicina_, a pretty little beetle, sometimes blue, sometimes deep green, and finely punctuated, which lives almost exclusively upon a species of dwarf willow (_Salix retusa_). The _Nebria Escheri_, a black beetle, about two thirds of an inch long, with feet and antennæ of a brownish red; and The _Nebria Chevrierii_, with rust-coloured feet and antennæ, common in the sources of the Rhine. * * * * *