4^ The Irish Naturalist. Februtiry, 



ZOOLOGY. 



Eggs of Arion hortensis. 



While ]\Ir. H. L. Orr and I were collecting near "Sampson's vStone," 

 Downpatrick, April 14th, 1900, we found a specimen of this Slug, one 

 inch long, extruding eggs, of which there were nine when we left. The 

 eggs were about 2 m.ni. in diameter, almost, if not quite spherical. As 

 we did not know at the time that eggs of this species were so very 

 seldom found, we did not examine the eggs as carefully as we should 

 have done otherwise. Dr. Scharff, in his " Slugs of Ireland," Trans. 

 R.D.S., ser. xi , vol. iv.,p. 546, states that Simroth had some deposited 

 by captive specimens, which were round and quite clear. The Down- 

 patrick specimens were semi- opaque. 



R. WeIvCH. 



Belfast. 



Sphinx convolvuli Breeding in Ireland. 



The natural history magazines of last autumn contain many records 

 of the capture of larvae of the Convolvulus Hawk -moth in Great Britain. 

 Ireland also came in for an immigration of this insect ; and the capture of 

 the green variety of its caterpillar at Mallow, by Mr. F. Stawell (who 

 kindly forwarded specimen to the Dublin Museum), shows that it bred 

 in this country The occurrence of fresh specimens of the moth in 

 Dublin and the suburbs suggested that the insect also bred near the 

 cit}'. 



G. H. Carpenter. 



GEOLOGY. 



MoUusca from Shell-marl, Clonbrock, Co. Galway, and Portaferry, 



Co. Down. 



Streams and deep drains cut through beds of shell-marls, exposing 



good sections, near Clonbrock, and in one section near the old woods in 



demesne I obtained the following ten species, all of them abundant in 



the deposit : — Succinea putris, S. elegans, Limnceastagjialis, L. paliistris, Physa 



fontinalis, Bythinia tentaculata, Valvata piscinalis, V. cristata, Sphivrium 



cornetim, and Pisidiu7n piisillum. In the Ards peninsula, Co. Down, there 



are several such deposits. One I examined at Ballyfinragh Lough, three 



miles N.E. of Portaferry, is more calcareous than those I saw in 



Galway; the shells are more numerous, but there are fewer species present, 



and they are much smaller. Mr. R. A. Russell kindly sent me some pounds 



of this, in which, and in a smaller quantity I brought awa}- some years ago, 



I found Limnaa peregra, Valvata piscinalis, V. cristata, Platiorbis crista (rare) ; 



Splmrium corneinn, and Pisidium pusilhitn. In addition to these Mr. A. S. 



Kennard, of Beckenham, to whom I sent some of the material, found one 



specimen of Acme lineatay a rare shell in any old deposit, and usually so 



where it occurs alive, even now. Remains of the Irish Elk have been 



also recorded from Ballyfinragh. 



R. Wei<ch. 

 Belfast. 



