144 
WAYSIDE NOTES. 
June, 1889. 
of the Hairs or Bristles on some Land and Fresh-Water Shells,” 
printed on pp. 17-25 of the fifth volume of “ The Journal of Concli- 
ology,” and in a note at the end he says: “The youug of Paludina 
vivipara and Planorbis corneas are also said to be hispid, but these 
hairs are probably of a very delicate nature, and do not seem to be 
retained in cabinet specimens.” I cannot speak of the latter species, 
as I have had no opportunity of examining its young in the fresh 
state since my attention was directed to the note. But of the former 
species I can positively speak, and in a confirmatory manner. I have 
some specimens of Paludina vivipara alive in confinement, which I 
took the other day in company with Mr. F. B. Fitzgerald from the 
“Bathing Pond” on Hampstead Heath, London, N., where this 
species abounds in almost countless numbers. Thinking these to be 
pregnant, I rapidly killed two by immersion in a cold saturated 
solution of oxalic acid, and broke up the shell with a pair of dissect¬ 
ing forceps, cut through the thick columellar muscle, and extracted 
the animal. On following up the oviduct under water with the needle, 
in one of the specimens I found two embryos (4 mill, long) bulging 
out the walls of the oviducal lumen. There were others, but these 
were the largest, and I carefully extracted them. An examination of 
the shell-sculpture in these embryos with a lens showed strongly 
marked carinations (using this word in the sense given by G. W. 
Tryon in the first volume of his “ Structural and Systematic 
Conchology ”), which were even throughout their whole extent with 
the exception of one at the periphery of the body-whorl and two 
above it. These, under a low power, appeared to be of a granulate 
character, as if the ribs had beeu broken up at regular intervals. On 
using, however, the three glasses together of my pocket lens I saw 
that each of these granules was tipped with a little horny-whitish 
hair, a condition of things which resembles strongly the appearance 
presented by the knob and its attached cilium, which Engelmann has 
described on the free surface of the columnar cells in the enteric 
canal of some molluscs. I may add that the hairs were easily 
detached by the finger, leaving the granules behind, and that I can 
offer no explanation of their occurrence unless they may be regarded 
as a reversion to an ancestral condition, or, at least, explicable by the 
“ fundamental biological law ” of Ernst Haeckel.—J. W. Williams. 
Nottinghamshire Shells : A Correction. —In a note on p. 94 ante , 
I described Balea perversa (Linn.) as not hitherto recorded for 
Nottinghamshire. This I stated on the authority of Messrs. Taylor 
and Roebuck, who, in their recently revised “ Census of the Authen¬ 
ticated Distribution of British Land and Fresh-water Mollusca,” 
published at the end of my little book, “ Land and Fresh-water 
Shells,” do not give this species for the county under note. However, 
looking over some back numbers of “ The Naturalist,” I find that on 
p. 213 of the volume for 1886, there is a note by Mr. W. A. Gain, who 
records taking it, in company with Mr. Musson, “ beneath the loose 
bark of willow trees growing near the junction and within each of the 
parishes of Darlton, East Markham, and East Drayton.” My friend, 
Mr. G. W. Mellors, of Nottingham, however, called on me last 
evening, and he tells me that in Mr. Musson’s manuscript list of 
Nottinghamshire shells which he possesses, it is not so recorded, and 
that Mr. Musson was exceedingly strict in transmitting all his “finds” 
to paper. At any rate, though perhaps not as I stated new to 
Nottinghamshire, the two localities I recorded are evidently new. I 
take the present opportunity of placing upon record other shells 
