﻿President's Address. 



35 



MOLLUSCA. 



The Mollusca, or rather their shells, have long been a 

 subject of interest to Forth naturalists, marine and non- 

 marine species alike having been noted and recorded. They 

 early received some share of attention from Sibbald (/.c), 

 Laskey, i^eill, Fleming, Greville, Forbes, M'Bain, and others, 

 and they have been extensively collected ever since. Captain 

 J. Laskey collected largely on the Haddingtonshire coast, 

 but his long list, published in the Wernerian Memoirs for 

 1809 (vol. i.), is unfortunately marred by the inclusion of 

 many spurious species and other doubtful records.^ Useful 

 lists of land and fresh-water species were given in Ehind's 

 Excursions in the environs of Edinburgh (1833 and 1836 

 editions), in Stark's Picture of Edinhurgh (1834), and by 

 Dr Greville in the New Statistical Account of the Parish 

 of Dalmeny (1843). The longest is that in the 1836 edition 

 of Ehind's little book, where 64 species (about 60 according 

 to present views) are recorded, with localities, many of them 

 communicated by Captain Brown and E. Forbes. Stark's 

 list, contributed I believe by Dr J^eill, includes some 

 marine species as well. ISTaturally, a good many local 

 records are to be found in Forbes & Henley's History of 

 British Mollusca (1853), and also in Jeffreys' British Con- 

 chology (1862-1869). In 1862 a valuable list of Mollusca 

 (177 species) inhabiting the Firth of Forth and a portion of 

 Fifeshire, furnished by Dr James M'Bain, was published in 

 Wood's East Neuk of Fife. To the German Expedition of 

 1872, we owe a few first records for the Forth. 



This brings us to Leslie & Herdman's indispensable 

 Catalogue of the Marine Mollusca of the Area, published 

 in 1881 in their " Invertebrate Fauna." As the result of 

 their own investigations, combined with the previously 

 published records (Laskey's excepted), and supplemented 

 by others obtained from the collection in the Edinburgh 



^ The list, which is entitled, "Account of North British Testacea," con- 

 tains considerably over 200 "species" of Mollusca from Forth. Ballast 

 shells — a number of them exotic species — from Dunbar are probably account- 

 able for not a few of the records (see comments in the works of Forbes and 

 Hanley, and Gwyn Jeffreys ; also notice of Laskey by R. Gray in Proc. Berw. 

 Nat. Club, viii. p. 73). 



