232 



KEPORT on the TESTACEOUS MOLLUSCA* of the 

 L.M.B.C. DISTRICT. 



By R. D. Darbishire. 



During the past, their first season, the Committee's 

 operations have necessarily been tentative only. At best, a 

 dredge 30 inches wide, dragged for twenty minutes, at 

 intervals of from half a mile to two miles or more apart, 

 over unselected and unknown bottom, subject to unknown 

 conditions of tidal or fluviatile influence, can exhibit only 

 the merest glimpses of a fauna, and few indeed of accurate 

 biological history. And the repetition of such a day's work 

 at various times during the quiet days of summer, over 

 different grounds, scarcely adds quality to the " research." 

 Moreover, the Committee's district is characteristically want- 

 ing in rocky shores or bottom, and consequently in the 

 vegetable growths on which many Mollusca feed. 



The Committee has endeavoured to systematize specific 

 observation at Hilbre Island (which is of red sandstone rock), 

 and has already recognised the special gains of repeated 

 visitation and record. 



It is to be hoped that a similarly thorough examination 

 of other particular localities will become part of their work, or 

 will be undertaken by individual naturalists. The nature of 

 the sea bottom has to be ascertained, mapped, apportioned, 

 and studied, and the varying conditions of submarine 

 equilibrium duly noted — partly by the help of actual survey 



* The Nudibranchiata are discussed in a separate Keport (see p. 267) ; 

 and the specimens of Cephalopoda collected by the L. M. B. C. have been 

 examined by Mr. Hoyle, of the " Challenger " Office, Edinburgh, who has 

 furnished me with the notes forming the supplemental Report on the 

 Cephalopoda found at p. 278.— [Ed.] 



