366 WATSON : MARINE MOLLUSCA OF MADEIRA. 



Much of the dredging work was done by boatmen, who 

 simply emptied the dredge into large boxes of my providing, in 

 which by the time they reached me nearly all animal life was 

 extinct. Some dead shells were bought from fishermen who 

 brought them from Porto Santo, but such specimens I have 

 reckoned as quite untrustworthy for determining a doubtful 

 habitat. A very few were obtained through a friend from the 

 Selvagens, which are visited every year for the purpose of col- 

 lecting Barrilha (soda obtained by burning the Membryan- 

 themum crystallinmn L.), Orchil, a dye-lichen {Rocella tinctoria 

 L.), and Cagarras [Procellaria anglorum Temm.) — sea-birds 

 which when salted are still prized in Madeira as much as they 

 formerly were here. 



Besides my own gatherings those of the Rev. R. T. LoAve 

 unexpectedly came into my hands. He seems, for nearly fifty 

 years, to have collected interruptedly from 1826 till his 

 lamented death in April, 1874, when the "Liberia" steamer 

 with all on board disappeared in the Bay of Biscay. Mr. 

 Vernon WoUaston, his executor — now deceased — sent Mr. 

 Lowe's marine shells to me for publication, being himself too 

 busy with his great work on "Atlantic Coleoptera" to under- 

 take other work however congenial. The material thus sent 

 me was in its mass bulky, but had not received very careful 

 study ; it consisted, thus, mainly of common shells, had less 

 than half a dozen species not already in my own list, and the 

 more difficult groups were not quite fully defined. Still, 

 throughout, it bore the stamp of the conscientious care, labour, 

 and knowledge of all Mr. Lowe's scientific work. The speci- 

 mens were often many where mine were few, and good where 

 mine were poor — so that his stock greatly enriched my own ; 

 but a good many of my rare species were absent from his 

 collection. The very narrow margins of fresh additions to my 

 list surprised me, for the impression I had carried away from 

 my own dredgings was that I had got but a small part of the 

 marine mollusca of Madeira, and even now I believe that some 



J.C, vi., July, 1891 



