JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 353 



NOTES ON THE OSWESTRY DISTRICT OF SALOP 

 WITH REFERENCE TO LAND AND FRESH- 

 WATER MOLLUSCA COLLECTED THERE IN 

 JUNE, 1885. 



By baker HUDSON, M.C.S. 

 [Read before the Conchological Society.] 



Oswestry stands on the outskirts of the Shropshire plain 

 at an elevation of about 420 feet above sea level. It is a town 

 well wooded, the beech, oak, and ash being the niost conspicu- 

 ous trees in point of numbers. Though the town possesses an 

 abundant water supply yet no stream of any size passes nearer 

 to the town than about one mile to the south, where the river 

 Morda runs beneath the high road to Llanymynech. Ponds of 

 a fair size (generally called pools) are numerous, but generally 

 devoid of interest to the conchologist from the fact that the 

 majority of them contain no freshwater shells of any kind, 

 except perhaps in some cases a few Pisidiadas. The soil gener- 

 ally is of a light porous description, being chiefly a limey or 

 sandy clay. The millstone grit crops out in several places near 

 the town, and slabs of marl slate are obtained for building 

 purposes at no great distance. Coal is worked near Morda 

 village, and to the south of Whittington the soil evidences the 

 nearness of the new red sandstone, and limestone is worked at 

 Porth-y-waen about five miles south-west of Oswestry. The 

 country generally is in a very high state of cultivation, and 

 though well wooded few true woods are in existence. 



Several coppices were visited, but so cleared of under- 

 growth was the ground, that but little resulted from careful 

 searches. The pools too proved, as I have said, comparatively 

 barren, and possibly this might be due to the peaty nature of 

 their margins and the very fine mud which their waters held in 

 suspension. The roadsides and lanes in and around Oswestry 

 were very fully explored — Helix nemoralis, H. hortensis, If. 



