KIRKCUDBRIGHT AND ITS INLAND MOLLUSCAN FAUNA 7 



THE STEWARTRY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT AND 

 ITS INLAND MOLLUSCAN FAUNA. 



By W. Denison Roebuck, M.Sc, F.L.S. 



Kirkcudbrightshire orthe Stewartry or East Galloway, 

 with about 900 square miles of area and a semicircular coast- 

 line of 45 miles in extent upon the Solway Firth, includes a 

 natural area, of the basins of the Urr, the Dee, and the 

 Fleet, and parts of those of Nith and Cree. In elevation it 

 rises to 2764 feet at Mount Merrick, and its northern portion 

 is mainly moorland and hill-pasture, the southern being 

 under cultivation. Most of the molluscan collecting has been 

 done in the lowland region, from Maxwelltown to Dalbeattie, 

 Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright, and the result has been 

 a not inconsiderable enumeration of species. 



The very considerable number of records included in this 

 paper is the work of comparatively few observers. About 

 1884 and following years large numbers of records were 

 contributed by Mr Fred. R. Coles, collected in the valleys of 

 the Tarff and the Dee, close to Kirkcudbright, and several 

 about the same time and place by Mr William Thomson. 



About 1877, 1880, 1889, 1890, and 1893, Mr Richard 

 Rimmer, the author of one of the standard manuals of 

 British land and freshwater Mollusca, was in residence at 

 Dalawoodie, in Dumfriesshire, from whence, as a centre, he 

 investigated the valley of the Clouden [or Cluden], which 

 here divides the county of Dumfries from the Stewartry of 

 Kirkcudbright. It is to his assiduity and research that 

 we owe much of our knowledge of the smaller species, and 

 his especial acquaintance with the species of the genus 

 Vertigo, to which he paid a good deal of attention, has 

 materially enriched our lists for the two counties. As will 

 be seen in the list, the specimens upon which the Rimmer 

 records are based are now in the Royal Scottish Museum, 

 Edinburgh. 



In 1890 my friend Mr William Evans, with a view to 

 render more complete my " Census " of Scottish Mollusca, then 



