Page:Midland naturalist (IA midlandnaturalis01lond).pdf/365

Rh Peridinium may be cited us a good example of the Flagellata. My specimens, got from a clay-pit in December, were of a rich Indian yellow hue, about 1-300th of an inch long, furnished with a belt of active cilia running round the middle, a minute mouth near the centre, and on one side of the mouth a little filament, the so-called flagellum. Provided with such ample means of locomotion, the little acrobats kept up their rolling and tumbling movements with untiring vigour. I watched them at all hours, and never caught them reposing. My belief is that they never once rested from birth to death.

I shall not add any remarks upon the Tentaculifera, about which competent opinions are as yet divided. All who are interested in the microscopic forms of Freshwater Life must hail with expectation Mr. Saville Kent's new book on the Infusoria, a work which, side by side with other well-known authorities, cannot fail to be of great assistance to the student.



Since Martin Lister, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, indicated the existence of this Mollusk, which, he thought, might be a variety of H. rufescens, or a distinct species, giving as its habitat “Kent,” an almost complete knowledge of the Mollusks inhabiting Britain has been attained, and it is of much interest to Conchologists to note the distribution of species over these Islands.

Montagu, in 1803, called it Cantiana, after its early recorded habitat. We know now that it occurs not only in the south and south-eastern counties, but has spread northward and westward, following the theoretical line of migration of the Mollusca of this country.

We have authentic records of its occurrence in twenty-one counties—twenty in England and one in Wales, as follows:—Sussex, Surrey, Kent, Middlesex, Hants, Somerset, Essex, Hertford, Oxford, Gloucester, Monmouth, Suffolk, Warwick, Worcester, Cambridge, Norfolk, Stafford, Lincoln, Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Glamorgan. This being the case, we should expect to find it in the central counties of Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon, Leicester, Northampton, Nottingham, and Derby, and southward in Berks, Wilts, and Dorset.

If any of our friends, while reading these notes, will take the map of England, they will readily see that, with three exceptions, the counties enumerated as habitats, are contiguous; and whether we ascribe its distribution to the creature's own powers of migration, or to man's agency, the result is the same; and we should scarcely expect that, in its spread, it would skirt the eastern coast from the south, and travel from south up the central counties, and miss those indicated.

It will be of much interest if any of our friends, having observed it in any of the counties named, would kindly inform us of the fact.

In our own district it occurs at Henley-in-Arden, where it was first observed by Mr. W. G. Blatch; and we have, during one of our pleasant