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THE MOLLUSCA OF SUFFOLK.
THE MOLLUSCA OF SUFFOLK. BY OUR CONOHOLOGICAL MEMBERS.
THE compilation of a comprehensive account of the Land and Fresh-water Snails, along with Marine Shell-fish, of the County has been a simple matter, excepting in the way of synonymy, on account of the paucity and completeness of earlier literature upon the subject. The very generai segregation of the two groups has ever appeared unnatural to the Hon. Editor and is not perpetuated here, as has been the case in all local notices hitherto. We are unusually fortunate in possessing a most valuable basis for the former group so early as 1825, when appeared ' Desscriptions of Seven new British Land and Fresh-water Shells, with Observations upon many other Species, including a List of such as have been found in the County of Suffolk ' by the Rev. Revett Sheppard, F.L.S., dated from Wrabness Parsonage, May 16, 1822. " I have (says he) been induced to lay before the Society a list of those Shells hitherto discovered in Suffolk, by which it will be seen that the eastern* parts of this island are fertile in those elegant productions of Nature." Follows a bare catalogue of seventy kinds in the order of Linn aus, Draparnaud and Lamarck, whereof thirty-six are later elaborated in articles. Among these figure Teilina Henslowana, Turbo Offtonensis, Helix Somershamiensis, Helix Kirbii ( ' I hope this species will be called after one of the best of men, and best of friends, the Rev. William Kirby of Barham ' ), all of which titles but the first are unfortunately lost by priority : some records are from the ' estate of John Sheppard, Esq., of Campsey Ash,' others indifferently from ' my brother's garden at Campsey Ash ' ; at times the Revd. Revett collected, as at Friston Wood in May 1821, with his ' son.' The whole displays an industry and knowledge of Nature that this Society has been too slow in recognising, mainly because his publications appeared in a serial not in every library. John Sheppard of Monewden in Suffolk married Mary daughter of John Revett of Brandeston there ; he inherited the Manor of Morehall Hall in Campsey Ash in 1747 on the death of his cousin John Sheppard ; and died in 1793. They had sons, John of Campsey Ash, who married Letitia Wilson in 1797, had lssue, and died in 1824 ; The Revd. Revett, F.L.S. ; and Lieut. Frederic, fifth son, born 1790-1, died 1812, aged 21 (Charles Partndge, *Fairly obviously, it was D r . W . G . M a t o n ' s u t t e r ignorance of a Single Mollusc f r o m Suffolk, in his " Descriptive Catalogue of t h e British Testacea " ( T r a n s . L i n n . Soc. viii, 1807, pp. 17-250 & 5 coli, p l l . ) — p r e sumably the first at all complete list of indigenous species and to excluae Sabella, L — t h a t caused S h e p p a r d to bring f o r w a r d his account ot o u r Shells—Ed.