LAND AND FRESH-WATER SHELLS gg 



stone tracery-work of various styles and ages. There is no neigh- 

 bourhood, probably, but what, in a circuit of a few miles, embraces 

 some of the above objects ; and with respect to its natural produc- 

 tions, a person may pass year after year in the same spot, and still 

 find something new to admire — something new to investigate. In 

 the neighbourhood where I at present reside, and of which I have 

 made but a limited examination, (it being quite unknown to me till 

 within the last few months, and my time being much occupied in 

 duties of a more important nature), I have been able to discover 

 four hundred and fifty indigenous plants, sixty species of mosses, 

 numerous lichens, and more than forty species of the British land 

 and fresh-water shells. Some of the rarer species of birds are, also, 

 occasionally met with, the male and female Peregrine Falcon hav- 

 ing; both been shot in a wood in the immediate neighbourhood dur- 

 ing the past winter ; one of which is now preserved in the residence 

 of Earl Howe, at Gopsal. Some of your readers may, perhaps, 

 wonder at the number of British land and fresh-water shells which 

 I have stated as found in this neighbourhood. I will, therefore, 

 give some insight into my mode of procuring them ; and as many of 

 the specimens, though exceedingly minute, are yet most interesting 

 objects of nature, I will preface my account by mentioning a very 

 useful, and by no means expensive, work upon the subject ; I allude 

 to Turton's Manual of the British Land and Fresh-water Shells, 

 with coloured figures and descriptions of one hundred and twenty- 

 six different species, the greater number admirably executed. It 

 does not, indeed, contain the whole number hitherto discovered, as 

 I possess three or four species which are unnamed and unalluded to 

 in the work. One, the Assiminia Grayana, from Greenwich 

 Marshes ; also. Helix obvoluta, Cyclas pnlchella. Helix pullulata, 

 (possibly a variety of Helix nemoralis), H. globularis and cellaria ; 

 the four last from Mr. Bean's splendid and unique collection, at 

 Scarborough, which also, I believe, contains several others not men- 

 tioned by Turton. A descriptive catalogue from Mr. Bean would 

 be a valuable addition to our knowledge of British inland concho- 

 logy. Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to some of your readers 

 were I, in the conclusion of this paper, to enumerate the different 

 species of shells which I have discovered during^ the present winter. 

 The country around, at first sight, does not appear to be well 

 adapted to the increase of the larger species of Helix, as there is no 

 calcareous deposit in the neighbourhood, and it is in a limestone, 

 chalk, or oolitic subsoil, that most of these species flourish, and are 

 consequently found in considerable abundance. The surrounding 



