MARSHAL!. : ADDITIONS TO " BRITISH CONCHOI.OGY.' 77 



mended by some doctors to increase the gastric juice in consumptives. 

 It is alleged that six large oysters, impregnated with fresh sea-water, 

 taken before a meal, in a few days bring about a manifest increase of 

 appetite and an improved digestion. They have demonstrated this 

 in a large number of patients by test meals, and they declare the 

 oyster to be a tonic of the first order and of great benefit to weakened 

 patients and those of deficient appetite. 



It has long been known to some doctors that oysters, in addition 

 to their food value, are of the greatest use in aiding the restoration to 

 strength of convalescents, on account of their tonic action, and that 

 they also form avaluable pabulum for the nervous system in cases of 

 exhaustion. It is, therefore, unfortunate that this valuable remedy 

 should be maintained at prohibitive prices, but also inevitable while 

 the oyster, notwithstanding its extreme fecundity, has to contend with 

 numerous enemies from the cradle to the grave. In the larval con- 

 dition, when the larvae are about 150th of an inch in diameter, there 

 is hardly any animal in the sea too small to make a meal of it, and 

 even later, when the shell is thickening but still soft, the oyster is the 

 prey of innumerable fish, so that the amount of destruction from all 

 causes is enormous. 



The O. cochlear of Poli was dredged during the ' Porcupine ' 

 Expedition 40 miles off Valentia, in no fathoms. 



Pecten islandicus van scotica Simpson.^— A dozen living 

 specimens of this shell, about an inch in length, were taken by Mr. 

 G. Sim, of Aberdeen, from a piece of coral brought in by one of the 

 Aberdeen trawlers, who said he had trawled it 40 miles N.E. of the 

 Flugga Light, in about 90 fathoms. Flugga is the most northerly 

 lighthouse on the island of Unst in the Shetlands. Other examples 

 of the same variety have been taken between the Orkneys and Shet- 

 lands in i45f., by Mr. J. Simpson, who has adopted the varietal 

 name of scotica for this dwarf form. G. O. Sars gives the range of P. 

 ishxndicus as "5 — 50 fathoms from Finmark to Bergen, where it 

 becomes dwindled." 



{To be continjied). 



I Notes on Rare M.o\\., J oitrii. of Conch., 1910, vol. 13, p. no; Trans. Aberdeen VV.JM. 

 Nat. Hist. See, 1903, p. 66. 



Activity of Arion ater. — A fine specimen of Arion atef oi ihs white variety 

 was taken on the Cartmel road, Aiigu.st 23rd, and placed in a box on the top of a 

 book-case, four-and-a-half feet high. During the night it ate its way out, and at 

 eight o'clock in the morning was seen crawling along the book-case, then on to the 

 wall and all round the frame of a door, then under that door and under another, 

 and was found after lunch under a window seat eleven feet from the last door. The 

 total distance traversed is about thirty-eight feet. When found it was squeezed up 

 tight, asleep, as. if it had been there a long time. — Margaret M. Bliss' (A'^a,/ 

 before the Society, '^e.^^t. nth, 1912). 



