382 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



ADDENDUM. 



The following abstract of Mr Somerville's remarks on Terrestrial 

 and Fluviatile Mollusca from Egypt and Palestine refers to speci- 

 mens exhibited by that gentleman at the meeting held on 

 November 24th, 1868, page 237:— 



Mr Somerville exhibited a small collection of land and fresh- 

 water shells, made by himself during a recent tour in Egypt and 

 Palestine. He remarked that the soft, muddy banks of the 

 Nile were eminently suitable for Unionidce, but by no means so 

 for Gasteropoda. The former, however, seemed to be held in 

 check by the rise and fall of the river. Specimens of Unio 

 pidoruvi, Unio Nilotica, and Unio jEgyptiaca (Caill), from the Nile 

 in Upper Egypt were shown. Near Esneh a number of Cyrena 

 fluviatilis (Miill.) were obtained, exhibiting some interesting 

 varieties. At the First Cataracts, on the confines of Egypt and 

 Nubia, Paludina hiiUmoides (Lam.) was very abundant, along witli 

 a small species of Mekniia. The Berber children are accustomed 

 to string tliese into necklaces for sale to travellers. The rocky 

 sides and bed of the river at that part, consisting, as they do, of 

 red syenite (whence were quarried materials for tlie obelisks, 

 statues, and temples of the ancient Egyptians), afford a firm 

 and clean surface for such Gasterojjods. 



In the neigiibourhood of the pyramids specimens of Paludina 

 Nilotica were met with, a species closely resembling a Cyclostoma. 

 They had probably been transported from the dried-up pools to 

 the desert by the wind. 



Throughout the valley of the Nile HeUcidce are very scarce. 

 The annual sulimergence of the country, and the universality of 

 cultivation wherever the soil is moistened, may account for their 

 paucity. Bulimus decollatns was the only one observed. But in 

 going out to the desert, one is amazed at the exuberance of snail 

 life. The scanty vegetation there met with is attacked by hosts 

 of Helices. At one of the stations on the railway between Cairo 

 and Suez, a few hundred yards from the station house, where 

 there seemed at first to be nothing but dry, rounded fiints. Helix, 

 maculosa (Born.) occurred in profusion. Specimens of H. Arahica 

 were also shown, collected by Rev. A. N. Somerville in the desert 

 near Sinai (1849). 



On reaching Palestine, the traveller finds himself in a country 



