JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



EIGG SHELLS : 



NOTES ON THE LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSCA OF THE 

 ISLAND OF EIGG. 



By the rev. JOHN AlcMURTRIE, D.D. 



(Rend before the Conchological Society, 6th May, 1891). 



The List is aittJienticated by speciDiens, -ivhich are herexuilJi presented to the 

 Museum of the Conchological Society at Leeds. 



The writer enjoyed the hospitality of the owner of the 

 island in x'Vugust, 1888, and again in July, 1890. His time was 

 not wholly devoted to natural history, but the molluscan fauna 

 of several likely places was examined with some care. 



Eigg (pronounced Egg) is one of the Inner Hebrides, lying 

 midway between Skye and the point of Ardnamurchan, and 

 belonging to the conchological vice-county of Ebudes North, 

 from which there are as yet comparatively few records of the 

 land and freshwater mollusca. Civilly, it is in the County of 

 Inverness, though the other islands, viz.. Muck, Rum, and 

 Canna, which together with Eigg make up the parish of Small 

 Isles, are in iVrgyll. The island is six and a half miles long by 

 four miles broad. Its geology is of great interest. It was 

 described in 1813 by Professor Robert Jameson, in his Mineral- 

 ogical Travels through the Hebrides, etc. ; and, more recently, 

 by Hugh Miller, in The Cruise of t/ie Betsy. The prevailing 

 rock is basalt, which over a large part of the island is disposed 

 in'columns, like those of Staffa, but on a colossal scale. The 

 ' Scuir of Eigg,' conspicuous to the voyager on those western 

 seas, is of splendid columnar basalt 1339 feet high. The 

 ' Singing Sand ' on the north-west shore does not come within 

 the scope of the Conchological Society, but it is a remarkable 

 natural phenomenon, requiring further investigation. A musical 



