(Proceedings Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. — Appendix 1887-1888.) 



%$e Marine &§ette of t§e "gioxtfy 

 of gvetanb. 



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INTRODUCTION. 



N compiling the following list of the recent Marine Shells of the 

 North of Ireland, the object of the writer has been to bring together, 

 and present in simple and accessible form, the information which 

 we possess regarding this attractive branch of local zoology. The 

 literature bearing on the subject consists of a number of papers and notes 

 scattered through various publications, some of them not easily obtainable 

 by the enquirer, while the matter which they contain is generally in such a 

 form that it is not easy to discover immediately what shells have been found in 

 our district, and in what localities. Such, too, is the difference of nomencla- 

 ture in the works referred to, that it is a task of some difficulty to compare and 

 correlate the lists of Mollusca which they contain ; and in Thompson's works, 

 indeed, which were published before the value of systematic nomenclature was 

 appreciated as it is ndw, it is occasionally very troublesome to find what species 

 is intended. In the list which follows, the names adopted by J. Gwyn Jeffreys 

 in his " British Conchology" — the standard work on the subject— are employed, 

 and where a species is referred to by any of the authors quoted under a different 

 name, such synonym is appended in parenthesis. 



The sources of information which have been utilised in preparing the present 

 paper are as follows : — 



I. "A History of British Mollusca," by Messrs. Forbes and Hanley. 

 This work supplies a few North of Ireland stations for species, other than those 

 taken from Thompson's work, to be mentioned immediately. 



