MAGAZINE 



OF 



ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



I. — Notes on the Land and Fresh Water Mollusca of Great Britain, 

 with a revised list of Species. By Joshua Alder, Member of 

 the Nat. Hist. Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



Much as has lately been done in the investigation of the British 

 land and fresh water Mollusca, there is yet wanting a good history of 

 our native species, which, like that of Draparnaud in France, or of 

 PfeifFer in Germany, may claim to rank as a national work. Several 

 local catalogues have appeared, each adding something to our know- 

 ledge of these tribes, and it has been still further increased by two 

 valuable monographs, — I allude to the Synopsis of the Testaceous 

 Pneumonobranchous Mollusca of Great Britain, by J. G. Jeffreys, 

 Esq. in the Linnean Transactions, and the Monograph of the Bri- 

 tish species of'Cyclas and Pisidium in the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society's Transactions, by the Rev. L. Jenyns. Hitherto the only 

 general account of the British species that has been published in a 

 separate form is the Manual of British Land and Fresh Water Shells 

 by Dr Turton. Considering the unpretending and cheap form in 

 which this little work appeared, we cannot expect to find in it a 

 complete history of these tribes ; and it has the still farther disad- 

 vantage of being an account of the shells only, without taking the 

 animals into consideration. There are also to be found in it several 

 errors in the introduction or omission of species. It is therefore 

 much to be desired that some of our naturalists would undertake to 

 give us a complete and scientific history of our native land and 

 fresh water Mollusca on a plan somewhat similar to that of Pfeiffer's 



VOL. II. no. 8. H 



