■J TRANSACTIONS. NATUKAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Bann till Castlerock promontory is reached. The cliffs here are 

 resumed for a short distance, and then the land sinks down into 

 a great and absolutely flat triangular piece of country, whose 

 seaward limit is known as Magilligan Strand and Point. There- 

 after comes the extensive stretch of water called Loch Foyle, and 

 beyond is the great headland and promontory named Inishowen. 



Port-Stewart, therefore, enjoys special facilities for concho- 

 logical work. It has the broad beach of glistening sand, where 

 the Atlantic sweeps in with giant strength ; and it has also the 

 rocks, with their pools and seaweeds, which afford shelter for 

 much molluscan life. The sand dunes are in themselves extremely 

 interesting, steep and loose in formation, and overgrown in many 

 places with prickly plants and bent. It is not uncommon to 

 find flint arrow-heads amongst these mounds, and the presence 

 there also of so many of our largest marine shells, such as 

 Cyprina islandica, so far removed from the sea margin, suggests 

 the thought whether there is any connection between the two — 

 whether our primitive forefathers who inhabited these dunes were 

 accustomed to bring down their prey with these flint arrow-heads, 

 and whether, when game was scarce, they were obliged to appease 

 the gnawings of hunger by means of these large shell-fish which 

 they gathered on the beach. 



During my stay in the neighbourhood of Port-Stewart, I paid 

 considerable attention to its marine mollusca. I was handicapped 

 very considerably in the preparation of a complete molluscan 

 faunal list of the locality by the fact that I had no dredging 

 apparatus with me. The water is so pure, and the sands are so 

 clean, that anyone dredging in deep water along that coast is 

 certain to have a rich harvest. The abundance of shells cast up 

 by the waves and tides on the shore is a proof of the richness of 

 the outside waters. The following records are therefore entirely 

 the result of shore collecting. 



But if I was deprived of the means of deep-sea research by the 

 want of a dredge, I was more than liberally assisted in shore work 

 by the friends whose hospitality I was enjoying. They, one and 

 all, soon became infected with the passion for discovering some- 

 thing new, and every day they would sally forth with unabated 

 ardour, and with keenest rivalry, in the hope that the last tide had 

 wafted in a mollusc which would contribute an addition to the 



