HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



173 



BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MOLLUSCA. 



THE county of Buckingham, in spite of its 

 proximity to the metropolis and the university 

 towns, appears to have been so imperfectly investi- 

 gated by conchologists that it is quite worth while to 

 publish an account of a small collection made for me 

 by my friend the Rev. H. H. Slater, M.A., F.Z.S., 

 during his brief residence at Chersley Vicarage, near 

 Aylesbury. It will also be useful to summarise the 

 present state of our knowledge of the molluscan fauna 

 of the county, so far as Mr. Slater's finds and the 

 published records go. 



Mr. Slater did not pay special attention to mollusca 

 during his residence at Chersley, but at my request 

 he collected for me last winter such forms as at that 

 season he was able to secure. 



The specimens he sent included : 



Spharium corneum, L. ; Pisidium amnicum, Mull. ; 

 Anodonta cygnea, L. ; Neritina fluviatilis, L. ; Palu- 

 dina contecta, Millet. ; Bithynia tentaculata, L. ; Val- 

 vata piscinalis, Mull. ; Planorbis vortex, L. ; P. com- 

 planatus, L. ; P. carinatus, Mull. ; P. corneas, L. ; 

 Limnaa peregra, Mull. ; L. auricularia, L. ; L. stag- 

 nalis, L. ; and Succinea put r is, L., all more or less 

 abundant in the river Thame, in Chersley parish. 

 Helix aspersa, Miill., which was an abundant pest in 

 the kitchen gardens of Chersley Vicarage. Zonitcs 

 nitidulus, Drap. ; Helix rufescens, Penn. ; H. hispida, 

 L. ; H. concinna, Jeff. ; H. nemoralis, L., and Clau- 

 silia rugosa, Drap., all of which were of more or less 

 plentiful occurrence on hedge-banks. The specimens 

 sent of H nemoralis were of the van rubella, Moq. 

 (their band-formula = 00000). On another occasion 

 Mr. Slater sent me a box of slugs, including Arion 

 ater, L. ; A. hortensis, Fer. ; Limax maximus, L., 

 and L. agrestis, L., all of them abundant. 



In his accompanying letter Mr. Slater stated that 

 the deficiency of woodland in his parish accounted 

 for the absence of some species from his consignments. 

 The specimens have all been seen to by my friends, 

 Messrs. J. W. Taylor and William Nelson, so that 

 there is no room for error. As Mr. Slater was not 

 paying special attention to mollusks when in Bucks, 

 the specimens he sent me can only be regarded as a 

 contribution towards the working out of the Bucking- 

 hamshire molluscan fauna, but in this respect they 

 have their value, more especially as at the present 

 time it is desired to get together a series of reliable 

 county lists based upon authentically named speci- 

 mens. 



Bibliography. 



The following books and papers are, so far as I 

 am aware, the only ones which contain references to 

 the land and fresh-water mollusca of Buckingham- 

 shire. 



1786. Light foot. An account of some minute British 

 shells, either not duly observed, or totally 



unnoticed by authors : in Phil. Trans., 1786, 



vol. 76, pp. 160-70, and plates i. ii. iii. 

 1803. Montagu's Testacea Britannica, pp. 89, 195, 



406, 430, 443, 463, 485. 

 1823. S/ieppard's List of Suffolk Shells : in Linnean 



Trans., xiv. 154, 162. 

 1834. Strickland's List of Shells found near Henley- 

 on-Thames : in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist., 



vii. 494-5- 

 1855. J- B[alton]. Land and Freshwater Shells in 



the vicinity of Oxford : in Morris's Naturalis 



for 1855, pp. 200-3. 

 1857. Norman. Notes on the Oxfordshire Shells : in 



Zool., xv. 5609-13. 

 1862. Jeffreys' British Conchology, vol. i. pp. 90, 



220, 279. 



1880. Rimmo's Land and Freshwater Shells of the 



British Isles, pp. 44, 173. 



1881. Taylor s Life History of Helix arbuslorum : in 



Journal of Conchology, Jan. 1881, iii. 259. 



These works include, in addition to the fourteen 

 fluviatile and twelve terrestrial forms sent by Mr. 

 Slater, notices of the following species and varieties as 

 having been found in Bucks : — Sphcerium lacustre, 

 Miill. ; Planorbis lineatus, Walk. ; P. nitidus, Miill. ; 

 P. carinatus, var. disciformis, Jeff. ; Ancylus fluviatilis, 

 Miill. ; A. lacustris, L. ; Helix aculeata, Miill. ; //. 

 arbustorum, L. ; H. fusca, Mont. ; H. rotu>idata, 

 Miill. ; H. rotundata, var. alba, Moq. ; H pulchella, 

 MUH. ; Pupa secale, Drap. ; Clausilia rugosa, var. 

 albinos, Moq. ; Cochlicopa tridens, Pult. ; Cyclostoma 

 elegans, Miill., and Acme lineata, Drap. 



Montagu also gives an account of an attempt once 

 made without success to introduce Helix pomatia, L. 

 into a Buckinghamshire locality. 



Summarising the information, it would appear that 

 the census of the Buckinghamshire mollusca yields a 

 very meagre result, only 43 forms (three of them 

 being merely varietal ones) being known for a county 

 which is so close at hand to the metropolitan collectors 

 that we might reasonably have expected that they 

 would long ago have exhaustively worked out 

 its fauna, instead of leaving our present knowledge 

 of it to be based on scattered and isolated and ancient 

 records (those of Lightfoot being now nearly a century 

 old), and upon a single collection made by a gentle- 

 man who was not specially studying conchology. 

 We can only conclude with the hope that — by the 

 labours of resident or metropolitan conchologists — we 

 may some time hope to see a full and complete and 

 reliable catalogue of the Buckinghamshire mollusca. 



W. Denison Roebuck. 

 Leeds. 



How to construct a Microscope. — Could any 

 of your readers give me any information as to how to 

 construct a compound microscope, what lenses would 

 be required, their probable cost, and how to arrange 

 them ? — Amateur. 



