Notes. 
1 1 1 
account for these southern shells turning up now and then in Ireland. 
The finding of Helix limbata at Belfast {I.N., vol. vii , p. 150) is a case in 
point, but there the animal was living on a hedge bordering a nursery 
that imports plants from southern France, and it was comparatively 
easy in this instance to imagine eggs, or even the shells themselves, 
being carried in the roots of these plants. At Rostrevor, however, the 
conditions were quite different, the habitat being among nettles growing 
on the ruined wall of the cottage, and a fair distance from any garden 
or demesne. Rostrevor House, the most likely place in the neighbour- 
hood to which foreign plants might have been imported, is almost a 
mile away, and Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, who has taken a keen 
interest in the find, states that although he has imported plants from 
Rovelli, and from Pallanza on Lago Maggiore, in Northern Italy, he 
has not received an}- from more southerly localities. He states, how- 
ever, that the nurseries at these places are often stocked with plants 
from Algiers and other parts of North Africa If the shell had been 
found in or close to the demesne one might have thought this a most 
likely method of introduction, but the distance seems to make this 
doubtful. Of course, there still remains the old theory of carriage 
attached to a bird's foot, but this does not seem feasible in a case where 
the distance is so enormous as that between Algiers and Rostrevor, 
unless it was only thus carried from the demesne after being introduced 
there with plants. 
A. W. Stei^fox. 
Belfast. 
Helix virgata in Co. Down. 
Well over half a century has now elapsed since the only other xero- 
phile mollusk hitherto known to live in Down (A'^Z/jr a<r^//a) was recorded. 
H. virgata was known to live in the adjacent counties, north and south, 
but the keenest search failed to discover any trace of it in the area 
between Ballycastle, in North Antrim, and Greenore, Co. Louth, a coast 
line of about 270 miles, till a month ago, when another Antrim locality 
was found at Magheramorne. During recent years A. W. Stelfox and R. 
Welch made careful search for it in many localities in the north and east 
of the county, but without success. They finally concluded that unless 
it lived between Greencastle audCranfield Point (the only limestone area 
of the count} ) it was unlikely to be found. I joined them in a special 
search for it, and we paid a visit to Greenore on 13th February, and 
crossed by the steam ferry to the Co. Down side. Almost at once we 
found H. virgata. It is abundant along the edge of the raised beach, also 
among the sand-hills all the way to Cranfield Point. Many were alive, 
and evidently feeding on the plants of the sand-hills. 
It may interest the student of variation to know that, unlike the Bally- 
castle H. virgata, the shells are much varied in size, colour and markings. 
Some specimens are almost black, others are white, with translucent 
bands, but all have the dark nucleus. They seem also more variable 
than those on the opposite Co. Louth coast, 
J. N. Mii,N^. 
Belfast. 
