357 

 SHELLS OF THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST. 



H. WALLIS KEW, F.E.S., 

 London ; late Secretary to Naturalists Society, Louth, Lincolnshire. 



The present paper, which contains such information respecting the 

 shells of the Lincolnshire coast as I have been able to collect, 

 is, for the most part, merely a record of shells collected on the beach 

 — mostly dead, and often much water-worn — and as such I trust it 

 will be useful to conchologists who may collect on the coast in the 

 future ; it is not, however, put forward as giving much actual and 

 precise information respecting the littoral, estuarine, and marine 

 mollusca which inhabit the shore, its estuaries, and the sea-bed 

 beyond. References are made to all previously published records 

 with which I am acquainted, but this list does not pretend to be 

 complete in this respect, although, it is imagined, very little has been 

 written on the subject. 



I have pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Mr. J. T. 

 Marshall, Mr. B. Sturges Dodd, and Mr. Arthur Smith, of Grimsby, 

 for kind co-operation and assistance, and indeed I have personally 

 done little more than collect and arrange the information. The bulk 

 of the records stand to the credit of Mr. Dodd, who has obligingly 

 furnished detailed lists of species collected on the beach from 

 Mablethorpe to Skegness, a distance of about sixteen miles ; from 

 Mr. Marshall, notes of a number of interesting forms have been 

 received; and Mr. Smith has communicated the results of collecting 

 done by him on about three miles of shore near Grimsby and 

 Cleethorpes, in verification whereof he obligingly forwarded a number 

 of specimens. As it seems very important that a local list, if it is to 

 be of any use, should be duly authenticated, it may be well to state 

 that, as regards records here published for the first time, specimens 

 of every species (except in the one instance referred to below) have 

 been seen by Mr. Marshall or Mr. Dodd ; all the Lincolnshire 

 shells in my possession, together with those received from Mr. Smith, 

 were submitted to Mr. Marshall, to whom also, as I am informed, 

 Mr. Dodd showed many of his shells, including all doubtful forms. 



The coast of Lincoln, as is well known, does not present varied 

 characters ; indeed, from the Humber to the Wash we have one 

 expanse of sand and mud, and little else. At low-water, during 

 spring-tides, a bed of peat, abounding with stumps and roots of 

 trees, may be seen cropping out from under the sand and underlying 

 clay, and the sea-bed for many fathoms is said to be of this character. 

 Such coasts as this are doubtless uninteresting enough from some 



Dec. i88q. 



