50 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



critics that there was so much in nature that was truly mar- 

 vellous that it was unnecessary for an author to invent lies 

 to startle his readers. The worm of a fair length may be 

 found threaded through the hollow spaces in the coralline 

 {Litliothamnion) growths that line the rock-pools of Bundoran, 

 the Island of Inishmurry, and other parts of Donegal Bay, 

 but it is almost impossible to get it out unbroken. It may 

 seem strange that a rock-pool only a few feet wide should be 

 a favourite habitat of an animal that sometimes grows twice 

 as long as the great Rorqual, the largest of our whales (which 

 sometimes measures 90 feet). Yet the Long Worm has been 

 described by Professor Macintosh in his monograph of the 

 British Annelids as being washed ashore at St. Andrews after 

 a storm in an unbroken mass that half -filled a dissecting jar 

 8 inches wide and 5 inches deep. Thirty yards of this were 

 measured without a rupture, and yet the greater part of it 

 was not uncoiled. It must have measured over 180 feet in all. 

 Mr. Welch described briefly the large heavy sub-fossil 

 Helix nemoralis, found in a land-shell deposit at Dog's Bay, 

 Connemara, some of which weigh from 75 to 110 grains each, 

 while the species now living there are distinctly smaller and 

 much thinner, weighing only from o to 15 grains each when 

 adult. A somewhat parallel case to this was cited and slides 

 shown of the extremely thick and heavy Placostylus senilis 

 which forms a deposit in the Isle of Pines, New Caledonia. 

 Here the shells occur in a matrix of coral sand resting on 

 coral rock, and only covered by a thin layer of earth. The 

 shells are so plentiful that they are quarried out by the 

 natives and burned for lime. The species now living on the 

 island is both smaller and very much thinner and lighter. 

 P. fihratus would probably most closely resemble the extinct 

 species. A number of the shells themselves of several species 

 were exhibited, including a very rare Placostylus of a vivid 

 green colour, which is only found, as a rule, when it falls out 

 of the trees — a nice example of protective colouring. The 

 natives have a habit of collecting these and carrying them 

 rtboiit until they can deposit them at certain sacred places. 



