The Museum Gazette 



The equipment of a conchologist is not expensive. Plenty 

 of boxes (cocoa and coffee tins serve very well) for large 

 specimens, a few corked glass tubes for very small ones, a 

 satchel to carry them in, and a scoop with a long handle for 

 searching pools, are all that will be required for shore work. 



Opportunities may arise for using a dredge net from a boat : 

 such should never be missed, as the best captures are always 

 made by this method. 



Shells which have been tossed about on the beach and 

 become worn are useless. Living specimens should be ob- 

 tained, if possible, but a worn shell might fill the blank in 

 the collection until a better is forthcoming. The best time 

 to collect is at low water. The collector will quickly make 

 himself acquainted with the favourite haunts of the different 

 species, he will soon learn by experience that it is useless to 

 look for razor-shells and cockles on very rocky ground, or for 

 piddocks in sandy places. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH SEA-SHELLS. 1 



Spiral Shells. 



Description of Plate I. See Frontispiece. 



Turritella communis (PL I., figs, i, 2) is one of the com- 

 monest of our native shells, and the only British representa- 

 tive of the genus. It is uniformly reddish-brown, or that 

 colour in wavy stains on a livid ground ; occasionally entirely 

 white. The operculum is multispiral with fimbriated edge. 

 It frequents muddy and weedy localities all round our coast. 



The Pelican's-foot shell, Aporvhais pes-pelecani (PI. I., fig. 3), 

 is generally distributed around our shores and all the coasts 

 of Europe. It prefers a gravelly bed, and may be dredged 



1 Names from Forbes and Hanley. Those in brackets are from the list of 

 British Marine Mollusca, published by the Conchological Society in 1901. 



