PART VIII. 



MOLLUSCA. 



(Molluscs). 



By the REV. CANON J. W. HORSLEY, M.A., former Vicar of Holy Trinity 

 Church, Woolwich. 



I am honoured by a request to prepare for the South-Eastern 

 Union of Scientific Societies, in view of their Woolwich Congress, 

 some survey of the terrestrial and fluviatile mollusca to be found 

 in the district of N.W. Kent. I do so with the greater pleasure 

 because I practically began in Woolwich, when Vicar of Holy 

 Trinity from 1888 to 1894, my conchological studies. 



That attention had been paid to the mollusca of this district 

 in the earlier half of the nineteenth century is obvious from 

 localities mentioned in Jeffrey's " Conchology," which notes, how- 

 ever, when quoted in J. W. Williams' " Manual of British 

 Shells " in 1889, were, in some cases, erroneous, as the shells were 

 then extinct in the localities given, in consequence of the pollution 

 of the Thames, which drove both fauna and flora lower down the 

 river. Building operations also, of course, contributed to the 

 disappearance of species. Amongst the group of field-naturalists 

 associated with me at Woolwich, the one who knew most about 

 the subject and the district was A. J. Jenkins, of Deptford, who 

 contributed to " Science Gossip " in 1890 an exhaustive paper on 

 " British HYDROBI^E, their distribution and habits." Then came, 

 in " Science Gossip " for 1891, an interesting paper by Mr. Jenkins 

 and another of our party, L. O. Grocock, dealing especially 

 with the fluviatile and estuarine shells of the lower Thames. Other 

 members of our small band who did much to find what the district 

 contained were two Arsenal employes, Messrs. A. Old and A. S. Poore. 

 The list I now present is based chiefly on one most carefully drawn 

 up recently by B. T. Lowne, Registrar of the Catford and 

 District Natural History Society, whose investigations supplement 

 my own as -being chiefly for the inner belt of our district. Of the 



