72 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



SOME PRELIMINARY NOTES 



ON THE LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSCA 



ABOUT TARBERT, LOCH FYNE. 



By THOMAS SCOTT, M.C.S. 



Corr. Member Nat. Hist. Soc, Glasgow, and Glasgow Geol. Soc. 



[Read before the Conchological Society, June 3rd, 1886.] 



Before proceeeding to give a list of species and varieties 

 known to occur in this district, it may be as well to say a few 

 words about the district itself, which will help to explain why 

 some genera are either not at all or but poorly represented, 

 while of others there are a fair number, both of species and 

 varieties. 



The scenery about Tarbert presents, when seen for the 

 first time, a very uninviting aspect. Grey, lichen-covered, 

 weather-beaten rocks rise up everywhere — in some places sheer 

 from the water's edge — in rugged rounded masses, becoming 

 more elevated as they recede inland, but never reaching a 

 height that can be termed alpine. Approaching Tarbert from 

 the south, the barren ruggedness of the hills, affording in many 

 places, on their hoary sides and summits, scarcely a foothold 

 for even that cosmopolite of the Highlands, the heather, gives 

 one an idea of wild desolation, which those accustomed only to 

 the rich pastoral scenery of England could scarcely realise, and 

 tends to beget in the mind of the conchologist serious misgivings 

 as to his being successful in getting many land or freshwater 

 species in the locality. 



The fact, too, that the rocks of which these hills are com- 

 posed are hard metamorphic rocks, rather increases than allays 

 these misgivings : they belong to the ' Lower Quartzose and 

 Quartz Rocks of the Highlands,' and are probably of Lower 



J.C., v., July, 18S6. 



