77 



REMINISCENCES AND PRACTICAL HINTS ON 

 COLLECTING. 



Bv E. COLLIER. 



(PiKsideiUial Address delivered al ihe Annual Meeting, October iS, 1919'. 



Bovs and youths generally do some kind of collecting, and as a 

 youth I collected birds' eggs, butterflies and moths, shells, stamps, 

 etc., but soon after coming to Manchester in 1869 I was introduced 

 to the late Mr. Thos. Rogers, and by him invited to the meetings of 

 the Lower ^losley Street Natural History Society. As Mr. Rogers 

 was not only a botanist, but a keen conchologist, I became more and 

 more interested in shells, and as I only very occasionally visited the 

 seaside, I decided to collect our British land and fresluvater shells. 



Ultimately I commenced to make a collection of the foreign 

 species, as I was offered many in exchange for the British ones that 

 I sometimes got in quantity. 



One of my earliest finds was a pond, now filled up, near the corner 

 of Withington Road on Wilbraham Road, in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 

 where I found Planorbis spirorbls and Liinncca glabra in very good 

 condition. Subsequently I often found these two species together, 

 both in ponds and ditches. I offered these through the exchange 

 column of " Science Gossip," which was then a noted magazine for 

 exchanges, and soon had many replies, as L. glabra seems to be 

 very local, although plentiful in the neighbourhood of Manchester. 

 Amongst the earliest people with whom I exchanged were Mrs. Fitz- 

 gerald, of Folkestone, and her sister, Miss F. ]\L Hele, of Bristol, 

 both early members of this Society. 



Whilst on the subject of P. spirorbls^ I may say that, in my experi- 

 ence, this species is more often found distorted than any other species 

 of Planorbis. I have collected specimens from a ditch near Piatt 

 Church, Rusholme, a locality now built over, but the most remark- 

 able ones I know were found by Mr. A. G. Stubbs in a ditch at 

 Tenby. 



As I often went to Southport on business, when my work was done 

 I went off to the outskirts of the town collecting, having a small 

 dredge in my pocket, and a short stick in my samples. In a ditch 

 at Blowick I found a considerable quantity of Limncea pahistris and 

 Aplexa hypnorum, and amongst the former a beautiful specimen of 

 the var. albida ; but I did not know this until I came to clear off the 

 green confervoid growth which virtually covered the shell. I re- 

 corded this (y. of Conch., i., p. 139), as I found only one previous 



