82 



The Na^turalist. 



to Jerveaulx Abbey. Here the time at disjjosal, after examination 

 of tbe gromid-plan of the various buildings, did not permit of a 

 search for shells, and we had to content ourselves with dead speci- 

 mens which we found in a horse-trough among the ruins. Here, 

 they were in tolerable numbers, both of species and individuals^ 

 giving some slight indication of what we might have expected to find 

 living among the hoary ruins and well-kept gardens of the old 

 Cistercian Monastery. The conveyance once more in requisition, we 

 drove from Jerveaulx to Leyburn, and then walked along Leyburn 

 Shawl and through Gillfair Wood to Bcarth Nick, and down the 

 Richmond Road to Redraire Station. Our other excursions — 

 exclusive of those devoted to the examination of Semerdale — were 

 pedestrian feats and mountaineering exploits, in the course of which 

 we did not make conchological investigations, beyond duly noting 

 such species as might casually and accidently obtrude themselves 

 upon our notice. 



The observations on the weather, &c., made in the paper on 

 Semerdale, apply in equal degree to the present one, and I will only 

 add that as no rain whatever fell for nearly a fortnight, shells were 

 day by day increasingly more difficult to detect. To put the case 

 more pointedly, I will instance one or two visits to the waste ground 

 near Redmire Station. One was immediately after our first arrival 

 in the dale, and the other about a week later. Heavy rains had 

 preceded the commencement of our holiday, falling, in fact, up to the 

 very day before we started. So on our first visit to Redmire the 

 waste land yielded abundantly. Then followed a week of bright, 

 sunny, and dry weatLor, and our second visit was productive only of 

 straggling individuals of Helix rotnnclata. 



Messrs. Nelson and Taylor have done me the kindness to examine 

 my shells, and give me the benefit of their opinions on the determin- 

 ation of the more critical ones ; and I am much indebted to my friend, 

 Mr. T. K. Skipwith, for co-operation and companionship during the 

 collection of them ; also to my other companions for the good-natured 

 forbearance and cheerful resignation with which they endured the 

 affliction of the company of a couple of " snail grubbers," — as they 

 feelingly styled us. 



To render the present paper a complete record of what we, so far, 

 know of the conchology of the upper portion of Wensleydale (from 

 Jerveaulx upwards), I include in the list notes of the species and 

 varieties which were collected in the dale, in 1877, by Messrs. Wm, 

 Nelson and John W. Taylor, and Mr. Henry Crowther; at Hardraw 



