202
ON THE LAND AND FRESH-WATER MOLLUSCA
COLLECTED IN WANSTEAD AND THE
NEIGHBOURING DISTRICTS, IN THE
BECONTREE HUNDRED OF ESSEX.
By WALTER CROUCH, F.Z.S. (Vice-President), Member of the Conchological Society of
Great Britain and Ireland.
[Read December 29th, 1888.]
IN presenting to the Club a list of the Mollusca collected person-
ally in my own district, I feel that a word of explanation is
necessary, as some years have passed since I promised to compile
the list. The delay has chiefly been caused through a desire to add
some species to the list. I feel confident that many have yet to be
gathered in ; but, as time passes, my leisure for collecting becomes
more limited, and I therefore now think it well to record the species
already collected, with a hope that others who may have more time
and opportunity may be induced to take an interest in the work, and
thus enable us to obtain a more complete record.
Our member, Mr. J. E. Harting, in a paper on this subject read
in Epping Forest, on August 6th, 1887 (vide Essex Naturalist, vol.
i., pp. 169-176), called the attention of members to some of the forms
of land and fresh-water Mollusca and their shells and spoke of the
methods of collecting and preserving them, and in a footnote to his
paper an announcement appeared intimating that specimens might
be sent for identification either to him or to myself.
Not a specimen has been sent to Mr. Harting in response, and
the only ones I have received have been from our member, Mr.
William Allen, of Canning Town, who has collected about twenty
species in that neighbourhood. All of these occur in other parts
of the hundred, but I trust Mr. Allen may still go on collecting and
obtain a fair number before the ground is entirely cumbered by
modern bricks.
We were reminded by Mr. Harting that some shells had been
recorded as early as 1730 by Messrs. Taylor and Dale in the Appendix
to the "History and Archaeology of Harwich and Dovercourt," but
in this work I find no mention of land or fresh-water shells; those
figured and written of being entirely confined to marine forms,