245 



MATERIALS TOWARDS A 

 LIST OF THE LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSCA 

 OF LINCOLNSHIRE. 



W. DENISOX ROEBUCK, F.L.S. 



Five years ago all that was known of the terrestrial and fluviatile 

 mollusca of the great county of Lincoln might have been summed 

 up in a brief enumeration of fifteen specific names. We are now 

 able to give — as the result of work done in 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 

 and 1887 — a goodly list of no less than eighty-eight distinct species, 

 besides numerous varieties, and the outcome of the investigations 

 made, notwithstanding the smallness of the area from which they 

 come, shows that the county of Lincoln is one of the richest and 

 most prolific in animal life of the English shires. 



The area which alone has been at all thoroughly and systemat- 

 ically searched is a small parallelogram between the coast and the 

 wolds which extends from Saltfleetby to Anderby and from Louth to 

 Claxby. These two, the long sides of the parallelogram, measure no 

 more than about twelve miles each, while the other two, the short 

 sides (Saltfleetby to Louth and Anderby to Claxby), measure about 

 eight miles and six miles respectively. Within this limited area occur 

 a very large proportion of the species recorded in this paper. Outside 

 of it, records are few and scanty, investigations have been but inter- 

 mittent and seldom. 



The pioneer of conchological research in Lincolnshire was Dr. 

 Martin Lister, who was himself most probably of Lincolnshire 

 relationship, aUied to the Listers of Burwell Park, near Louth, as may 

 most reasonably be surmised from the fact that the two Lincolnshire 

 records given in his treatise of English shells, published in 1678, are 

 for Cydosto?na and Zo7iites fulvus as occurring in Burwell Woods, a 

 locality in which they have both been re-discovered of late years by 

 Mr. H. W. Kew. 



The next published record dates one hundred and seventy-five 

 years later. Mr. E. J. Lowe, in 1853, published an account of the 

 ' Conchology of Nottinghamshire,' in which he recorded four species 

 from Grantham, Lincolnshire — Helix aspersa, H. nouoralis, H. piil- 

 chella^ and Carychiinn. 



Five years subsequently ^Ir. Bellars, in his Illustrated Catalogue 

 of British Shells (1858), added Helix hortensis (from Croyland) to the 

 Lincolnshire fauna. 



The next addition was Helix hispida var. subglobosa from 

 Brocklesby, recorded by Dr. Jeffreys in the first volume of his 

 ^ British C onchology' (1862). 



Aug. 1887. 



