Yorkshire Naturalists' Union: Annual Report, 1909. 57 



Not very much was actually found, the most interesting species, 

 perhaps, being Acnuea testudinalis and Tonicella rubra, both of 

 them rather local on this coast (see report in " The Naturalist " 

 for Sept.). At the same time steady work has continued in the 

 way of recording species. During a stay of some days at Redcar, 

 in the autumn, I found some ninety different species, including 

 Emarginula fissura, Dentalium entale, Capulus hungaricus (of which 

 the late W. C. Hey was wrong in saying that it is confined to Red- 

 car ; I found young specimens at Filey and Scarborough this year), 

 besides many fairly common, but little known shells, such as 

 Diaphana hyalina, Beta riifa, and Clathurella linearis. A micro- 

 scopic examination of tide drift from Scarborough and Filey again 

 proved very successful. Among many shells characteristic of the 

 drift, such as Philine catena, I found another specimen of the very 

 rare Ceratia proxinia, which will be placed in the Hull museum. 



The collection there is proceeding apace. It is hoped that 

 by the end of the year specimens of about one hundred different 

 species, duly named and arranged, will be available for the student 

 of marine mollviscs. 



But, in addition to those observations and recordings on 

 which our Chairman so urgently insisted, there is still a great deal 

 to be done for those who desire to know, as scientists would desire 

 to know, the marine fauna of our coast. This may be seen at 

 ■once by examining the article by Mr. Borley on marine biology in 

 the " Victoria History "of our county. That article is obviously 

 of very great value : — (i) For the first time it puts together in a 

 connected whole notices found scattered in different works of the 

 last fifty years or so ; (2) It aims at definite scientific conclusions 

 as regards distribution of species connected with the temperature 

 of the water, its depth, tides, etc. This raises it at once high 

 above the level of a bare string of statistics. If students should 

 find, after a thorough examination, that a fuller, and, to some 

 extent, a more accurate knowledge of the mollusc fauna and its 

 distribution require some modification of these conclusions, it is 

 only what happens in all scientific works. In this case the results 

 should certainly not be accepted as altogether final. 



(i) In addition to a few misprints, such as jasiata for fasciata, 

 telinella for tellinella, which need deceive nobody who possesses 

 the Conchological Society's list of Marine Mollusc a, there are one 

 or two more serious errors. Thus Pliolas crispata is given as a 

 distinct shell, with different records, from Zirphcea crispata, 

 though they are, of course, onh' two names of the same species. 

 Again, Mr. Borley has, it appears, misunderstood the objections 

 of Alder and Jeffreys to admitting Bean's record of Gibhula magus 

 as found at vScarborough. When they suggested that it had come 

 with ballast, which Jeffreys shews to have been a fruitful source 

 of incorrect records, they did not mean to suggest that it was 

 non-British, but merely not a native of the Eastern or North- 



1910 Jan. I. 



