132 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



MOLLUSCAN INVESTIGATION IN ABERDEEN- 

 SHIRE NORTH. 



By Fred Booth. 



[This is the fourth of the series of notes on investigation of the northern 

 range of mollusca in Scotland, undertaken by aid of a Government 

 grant. W. D. R.] 



The whole of the portions of Aberdeenshire visited by me, 

 away from the shore, consists of low, undulating hill-country, 

 all of which appears to be under cultivation, chiefly of an 

 agricultural nature, grass-land occupying the greater part, 

 with corn and other crops in the rest of it. The roads are of 

 granite and in good condition, separated from the fields by 

 the usual barbed-wire fences, there being no hedges and very 

 little if any banking, and no loose stones lying about. 

 Small patches of woodland occur in several places, chiefly 

 near rivers or villages. 



The coast-line from Aberdeen northwards to Cruden is of 

 two kinds the portion from Aberdeen to Collieston con- 

 sisting of sandhills overgrown by marram and other grasses 

 along the margin near the coast, while further inland the 

 grass is cut short by the several golf-clubs that occupy the 

 sandhills from Aberdeen to Cruden Bay. In this part there 

 are very few boggy or marshy places, except where a small 

 stream running from the higher lands to the sea becomes 

 choked up with masses of iris, reeds, rushes, etc., in which 

 case it spreads out and forms a small marsh, and the water is 

 lost in the sand of the beach. 



That part of the coast which extends from Collieston to 

 the south end of Cruden Bay is composed of precipitous cliffs, 

 with here and there a small cove whose slopes in some 

 instances allow of a path being made down to the beach. 

 There are also numerous clefts or rifts in the cliffs worn 

 down by the stream from inland. On the slopes of the coves, 

 and also in most of the rocky clefts, there occurred abundance 



