WELCH : SCALARIKORM HELIX NEMORALIS. 245 



Some collectors of great experience consider that the large number of 

 these, and especially of reversed examples found at Bundoran, are the 

 result of the very large number of shells collected for necklace mak- 

 ing compared with other places. Yet, it is curious that of all the 

 many tens of thousands of this species that my friends and I have 

 examined, mainly on our northern and eastern dunes, Mr. Green 

 should be the only one to find a real scalariform specimen, and that 

 at Bundoran very shortly after his arrival on the spot. 



Though necklaces are also made by the old women of Helix acuta 

 and H. ericetorum, the only good "sports" I could get records of were 

 four reversed specimens of the latter, which is nothing like so plentiful 

 as If. nemoralis. I cannot help thinking that much larger quantities 

 of this species have been used for the Blackpool and Southport 

 "trippers'" necklaces than for those at Bundoran. Yet the few 

 records I have from there were not obtained in this way, but collected 

 by Mr. R. Drummond, of Blackpool {aiitea p. 91) or his brother, who 

 has just recently found another scalariform specimen at Ainsdale, near 

 Southport. Now, with regard to these Lancashire necklaces, my 

 friend, Mr. R. Standen, informs me that for many years past, indeed 

 probably ever since Blackpool and its sister watering-places became 

 the haunt of the day or week-end "tripper," necklaces of shells have 

 been exposed for sale in great numbers, and the "trippers" in course 

 of time came to look upon the purchase of these souvenirs as the 

 orthodox thing to do, and a guarantee that their annual sea-side trip 

 had been a substantial fact. His earliest recollections of these neck- 

 laces date back some thirty odd years, and at that time they were 

 composed of dead Helix nemoralis and Turritella communis (known 

 locally as "cockspurs") threaded alternately. Of late years, as the 

 supply of wind-blown shells of Helix became less abundant on the 

 sand dunes in the vicinity of the towns and Turritella has become 

 scarcer, valves of Cardiuin echinatuin and other species have largely 

 taken the place of Turritella^ and Littorina is much used instead of 

 Helix. Although there are still plenty of living Helices to be found, 

 it never seems to have occurred to the shell gatherers to collect and 

 clean these. This also applies to Bundoran. 



Considering the vast numbers of Helix nemoralis found on the 

 Lancashire dunes, it seems at first sight strange that before Mr. Drum- 

 mond's captures there should have been no previously recorded 

 ■'sports,'' either reversed or scalariform, but the record might have 

 been different had the attention of the Lancashire shell gatherers been 

 drawn to them, hy pecuniary motives, as has been done in the case of the 

 peasant women of Bundoran. As to the cause of the abnormal forms, 

 and their comparative abundance at Bundoran, it appears to me 

 possible that it may be the result of the intrusion o f a grain of sand 



