258 Woodrnffc-Pcacock : T/inish S/ofies, etc. 



am working living shells, record the banding and interspacing 

 on my note-sheets as I pick them up, and slip them into the tin 

 when done with. As I return from collecting, I place them at 

 some well-recognised spot, I never collect at — my dumping 

 grounds, as I call them. 



The relationship of colouring and banding to soils and local 

 environment I must leave to future papers on the local records 

 I have collected, with the help c^ friends. I can speak with 

 some little experience now, as I have burnt ten thousand sheets 

 recording one specimen each. Willingly would I have kept 

 them for use, but as they were on iive different methods of 

 recording, I could do nothing with them. It is difficult to 

 record shells properly on any method — to translate one method 

 into another is beyond my wit, at least. Though the shells are 

 destroyed, the facts they illustrated are substantiated by the 

 notes I possess on the method suggested here. 



Why liheUida (Risso) should vary from seventy to eightj^ per 

 cent, on fresh water alluvium, and be entirely absent at thrush 

 stones in a Lincolnshire limestone quarry, I cannot say. Why 

 there should be less casianea (Moq.) than either libelhila (Risso) 

 or riihella (Moq.), under all the varying circumstances, I have 

 met with, seems inexplicable. The more you know, the more 

 profound seem the problems which confront you. Perhaps, 

 with the assistance of other workers, some of them may finally 

 be solved. 



It would seem, too, that there is a relationship between 

 ' indistinct,' ' intermittent,' or ' broken banding,' and certain 

 soils. On arid parti- or multi-coloured sea-sand banks, with 

 little grass growth, this type of banding is unusually frequent, 

 and seems to act as a protection to the mulluscs against their 

 enemies. Neo-Lamarckism, or the modern evolution, would 

 account for the prevalency of such banding in suitable localities. 

 I know this is not the explanation' generally given, but it seems 

 to accord best with the facts which may be observed. Two 

 quite independent matters seem to be confused by the common 

 interpretation. First, the physical cause for broken banding 

 first arising ; and secondly, the far more important question 

 from the evolutionists' point of view : — What has maintained it, 

 and made it hereditary ? Facts and fancy are widely distinct, 

 but are yet alHed. True science loves facts, but is ever seeking 

 to arrange them by methods suggested by imagination, i.e., 

 co-ordinated fancy. It may only be a coincidence and nothing 



