154 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
FISHES. 
Motella maculata as an Irish Fish.—A few years ago (about 1874) 
I obtained from a Dutlin fishmonger a fine large specimen of the Three- 
bearded Rockling, This I presented to the Natural History Museum, and 
placed it there under the name of Motella maculata (Giinther), as identified 
from Dr. Giinther’s excellent ‘ Catalogue of Fishes ’ (vol. iv. p. 366). My 
specimen was of a reddish salmon colour, or rich pinkish yellow, when 
fresh, with a number of black spots, and the fishmonger reported it as taken 
on the coast near Dublin. So difficu(t is it to ascertain the exact locality 
of any non-marketable, or small, insignificant fishes, when sold in the 
wholesale Dublin Fish-market, that I should like to draw attention to the 
Spotted Rockling, with a view of ascertaining whether it exists all round 
the Irish coast, or whether it be not rather a western and southern form, 
as seems likely.—A. G. More (74, Leinster Road, Dublin). 
MOLLUSCA. 
Limnga involuta probably a Variety of L. peregra.—For many 
years in succession I collected specimens of Limnea involuta (Harvey) in 
the little lake, called Lough Crincaum, above the Town Lodge, on 
Cromaglaun Mountain, near Killarney. The shells were always scarce; I 
never obtained more than from twelve to twenty specimens, which used to 
be found creeping along the tops of submerged stones, as if they were 
feeding upon the scanty Algz which grew upon the surface of the stones. 
They were very fragile, and I used to turn them carefully into a soda-water 
bottle, full of water, into which I had put a good many bits of Sphagnum 
moss. In this way they travelled safely to Dublin, and I kept them, 
several times, alive for many months, once for two years,—they subsisting, 
as it seemed, on the minute organisms contained in pure water from the 
Vartry Reservoir, in Wicklow, and they required no other food. More 
than once eggs were laid on the side of the smail glass vase in which I 
kept them, but I do not think that any young were hatched in my room in 
the Natural History Museum. I gave some to my friend the late Mr. E. 
Waller, of Aughnacloy, the well-known conchologist, and he told me that 
after two or three years, and when he had reared several generations in 
captivity, he found the involute spire disappearing in the younger progeny, 
and that he was satisfied that Limnea involuta had thus become converted 
into L. peregra (Miller). The examples which Mr. Waller brought, and 
showed to me, fully bore out this view. Some had still the involute spire ; 
others were simply thin and slight examples of L. peregra, in shape much 
like the shell figured by Forbes and Hanley (Plate exxii., fig. 5). With 
so careful an observer and so skilled a conchologist as Mr. Waller, the only 
risk seemed to be that, in feeding his Killarney mollusks as he did on water- 
