7852 



Mollusks — Insects. 



astray by any imaginary impulse that I may reckon on her statement with entirely 

 as much confidence as if my own eyes had demonstrated its truth. — Graltan's 



' Civilized America,' p. 39. 



Otrimastrephes todarus, Delle Chiaje. — The violent gales of wind which prevailed 

 about the middle of last month (November) may very possibly, amongst other waifs 

 and strays, have thrown ashore many denizens of the deep, whose presence might have 

 been worthy of record, had there been F any one to " make a note of it when found." 

 The squid whose technical name stands at the head of this notice was found, by a 

 fisherman, thrown ashore at Slif key, on the Norfolk coast, and, being strange to the 

 finders, was carried about the country and exhibited as a "queer fish." I made a 

 careful sketch of the animal, the occurrence of which may be worthy of notice, as it 

 does not appear to be a common form of cephalopod. Being pressed for time, I 

 requested a servant to measure it, forgetting to instruct him to make a separate 

 measurement of the body and arms. The. entire length was 2 feet 4 inches, of which 

 I should judge that the body, from the beak to the tail, could not have been less than 

 J 8 inches. — W. V. Guise; Elmore Court, December 2, 1861. 



Additions to Forbes' 1 Malacologia Monensis' — Two small species of fresh-water 

 shells which abound here may be worth recording in the pages of the ' Zoologist ;' the 

 one, Ancylus fluviatilis, Mull., solely on account of its being an addition to the list 

 drawn up by the lamented Edward Forbes of the Mollusca of this his native isle, 

 a synopsis of which will be found in Dr. Gray's edition of Turton (pp. 30 et seq.). It 

 must surely have been omitted by mistake, since its absence from our clear stony 

 rivulets would be more remarkable than is its presence. The other species, Pisidium 

 obtusale, Pfeiff'., is noteworthy not merely as a novelty to the Manx Fauna, — no 

 species of the genus being included in Forbes' list, — but also as a scarce or at least 

 local species in the South of England, and which, so far as I am aware, has not yet 

 been detected in any locality so far north. Clausilia bidens, Mull., also omitted by 

 Forbes, occurs on beeches at Ballaglass Glen in this parish. — Hugh A. Stoivell ; 

 Christ Church, Manghold, Isle of Man, December 12, 1861. 



Note on the Supposed British Specimen of Argynnis Aphrodite. — The proverb says 

 " better late than never," so I am now going to point out an error into which you 

 have inadvertently fallen so long ago as the date of your excellent ' Natural History of 

 all the British Butterflies,' which I can truly say is worth ten times the money it costs : 

 and I feel the more bound to do so, inasmuch as I have been the innocent cause of 

 misleading you. Under the head of Argynnis Aphrodite (p. 18), after stating that it 

 was described as British by me in Ma#. Nat. Hist., you go on to say, " I had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining the very specimen described by Mr. Bree," &x\, and that " the 

 mode of setting and the pin were identical " with other specimens in your possession, 

 taken by the late Edward Doubleday in North Carolina. Now this is altogether erro- 

 neous ; for I beg to assure you that you never have seen the specimen described by 

 me, and that the mode of setting and the pin are not foreign. The real fact is this. 

 When the specimen came into my {i.e. my son's) possession, being ignorant of the 

 names of foreign butterflies, and wishing to know the name of the one in question, 



