vill INTRODUCTION. 
subsequently (1853) at Vera Cruz. The younger man thus became interested in 
scientific pursuits. The chief field of their common researches was, however, not the 
city of Vera Cruz, in the hot coast-region, but the sugar-plantation of ‘* Mirador” 
(look-out) of Mr. Sarrortus, near Huatusco (between Orizaba and Jalapa), in the 
temperate region (tierra templada). The first novelties among the Mexican land- 
shells sent to Europe by Dr. Berendt were described by Dr. Pfeiffer in his ‘ Malako- 
zoologische Blatter’ for 1861 and 1862, among which were Cyclotus berendti, Helicina 
berendti, Helix berendti, and others; also Helix hermanni (p. 128) was named after him. 
STREBEL was afterwards assisted in his conchological researches by the family Sauas, 
to the members of which he dedicated his genus Sa/asiella, as well as S. joaquine and 
Glandina estefanie ; his own name is perpetuated in that of the genus Strebelia, 
Crosse. The unsettled state of affairs preceding the French-Mexican war rendered 
this scientific activity more difficult, but was the cause of the visit of the Prussian 
ship ‘ Gefion,’ the doctor of which, Dr. Cart FRIEDEL, brought home some shells from 
Vera Cruz, these afterwards coming into my hands. Dr. Berendt finally departed 
from Vera Cruz in 1862 for the Provinces of Campeche and Tabasco, and devoted 
himself almost entirely to ethnological researches till he died in 1878, in the city of 
Guatemala (see his biography in the ‘ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian 
Society’ for April 1879, and in the German Geographical Journal ‘ Globus,’ lix. 
no. 22). Strebel left Vera Cruz in 1867, and returned to Hamburg, where he still 
resides as chief of a merchant house and promoter of scientific interests among his 
fellow citizens. He published there, in 1873-82, five quarto volumes entitled 
‘ Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Fauna mexikanischer Land- und Siisswasser-Conchylien,’ 
containing very accurate descriptions and excellent figures of about 263 species; the 
numerous anatomical notes in them were contributed by Dr. Gzor@ Prerrer. The 
shells collected by Strebel were given by him to the “‘ Hamburg Museum of Natural 
History,” and I have had occasion to examine many of them while studying the 
Mollusca for the ‘ Biologia Centrali-A mericana.’ 
H. Hoge collected land-shells principally in the States of Chihuahua, Puebla, 
Vera Cruz, and Oaxaca, in 1879 and 1880; H. H. Smita in Central, Eastern, and 
South-eastern Mexico, in 1887-1889; W. Ricuarpson in North-western Mexico, in 
1889 ; and G. F. Gaumer in the Island of Bonacca, off the coast of Yucatan. The 
shells obtained by these four travellers were handed to me for examination by the 
Editors of this work, together with those found by F. D. Godman in Eastern Mexico 
and Yucatan in 1887-88. 
