JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. I95 



LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSCA COLLECTED 



AROUND PORTSALON, CO. DONEGAL, 



IRELAND. 



By R. STANDEN. 



(Read before the Manchester Branch, June 8th, 1893). 



This is a record of the results of four days collecting in the 

 neighbourhood of Portsalon, on the 28th to the 31st of May, 

 1893, ^^^ is chiefly interesting on account of its including 

 several important additions to the ' List of Irish Land and 

 Freshwater MoUusca,' by Dr. R. F. Scharff, published in the 

 'Irish Naturalist' for 1892. Species not recorded for Co. 

 Donegal in that list are marked on this with an asterisk (*). 



Portsalon is a retired little bay on the west side of Lough 

 Swilly, and about ten miles from RathmuUen. There is a good 

 hotel, and an expanse of low-lying sand-hills at the head of the 

 bay has been laid out as golf-links. 



The whole district under examination was metamorphic- 

 quartzite rock, with occasional masses of intrusive igneous rock, 

 peculiarly anti-conchological. A limestone cliff, abutting on the 

 sandy waste near to the so-called 'Bottom Shore' at the west 

 end of Kinny Lough, is marked on the map as an isolated mass 

 of metamorphic-limestone. This proved to be the most pro- 

 lific hunting-ground for Helicidse that occurred. 



The extreme dryness of the weather prior to my visit must 

 have influenced the comparative scarcity of some species^ and 

 particularly so of the freshwater ones, of which several were 

 only found in a half-grown state. The smaller pools and road- 

 side ditches were dried up ; but a good many specimens were 

 obtained from such places by examining the surface of the mud 

 and turning over the weeds in the damper parts. Rain fell 

 more or less each day, which brought out numbers of slugs and 

 the larger Helices, and search in the early morning and late in 

 the evening proved very productive. But the best hauls were 



