CONCHOLOGICAL NOTES : SWITZERLAND, 1877 * 



By James W. Wood. 



It is but little time a tourist can spare, from sight-seeing, for the 



more lowly occupation of shell-gathering. There are so many things 



" one must see," — so many hills to climb, and so little time to climb 



them in — that it would seem that in this high-pressure age of ours 



we go at a faster rate through our pleasures and holidays than we 



even do in business. My notes are glimpses as I hastened on my 

 way. 



The Axenstrasse skirts the shore of Lake Lucerne amidst its finest 

 scenery. I was leaning over the parapet wall on the lake side^ 

 looking at the glorious view, when something stuck to my hand ; it 

 was a Fupa avem. There are hundreds in the irregularities of the 

 stone wall. I took out a chip-box and scraped them out with the 

 box itself, until it was nearly full. The wall was hot and dry in the 

 brilliant sunshine, and each shell was closely attached to the stone. 

 In walking through the woods up to the Axenstein Hotel, I found 

 Helix nemoi'alis, fruticum, lapicida, obvoluta^ personata^ incarnata, erice- 

 toriim, with Glausilia laminata, rtigosa, parvula^ Pupa avena^ and 

 Pomatias maculatum. 



As you walk from Bex in the Rhine valley, to Grion by the salt 

 works, the road passes through woods, and on the smooth-barked 

 trees, but not on the rough ones, by the roadside are quantities of 

 Pomatim maculatum, with a few Pupa avena. On the bare stone walls 

 were quantities of this Pupa mixed with some P. maculatum. I also 

 found Helix fruticum and Clausilia laminata. 



The road from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, passing under huge 

 precipices, and fringed with trees among which are scattered fallen 

 masses of stone, is a happy hunting ground."'* One mass of rock I 

 found literally covered with Helix rupestris ; I also found many Selix 

 villosa, together with incarnata, lapicida, candidula, fruticum • Pomatias 

 maculatum^ Pupa avena, Bulimus montamis, obscurus, and Clausilia rugosa 

 2indi parmla. ILelix pomatia and nemoralis are so generally distributed 

 that I scarcely took any notice of them. 



I should be inclined to think the Jura range of limestone a paradise 

 for conchologists. As you ascend the Chaumont from Neuchatel, 

 there are low limestone cliffs much eroded at the base, and under this 



* Communicated and read before the *' Conchological Society of Great Britaia 

 and Ireland." 



N. S., Vol. hi., Mar., 1878. 



