IV PREFACE. 



In January, 1906. I laid the matter before the New Zealand 

 Institute, when the very gratifying resolution was passed re- 

 questing the Government to consider favourably the desirability 

 of issuing a new ' Manual of the New Zealand Mollusca." 

 At the meeting in January, 1907, the late Sir James Hector, 

 as President of the New Zealand Institute, stated that the 

 Government had decided to publish a work on the subject, 

 and had appointed me as editor. At my special request, the 

 Government allowed the text of the Manual to be accompanied 

 by an atlas of plates. 



I wish here to express my very best thanks to the Hon. 

 George Fowlds, then Minister of Education ; Mr. Alfred Kidd, 

 then Member of Parliament ; Mr. G. Hogben, Inspector-General 

 of Schools ; Messrs. M. H. Browne and W. E. Spencer, of 

 the Education Department. Beginning my work in January, 

 1907. they all most kindly assisted me in my task. 



What Sir James Hector expressed in the preface to the 

 Manual of 1880 should be repeated here : " Shells afford the most 

 reliable data for palseontologists ; but before the extinct shell 

 fauna can be utilized the Recent shells of the area must l>e 

 thoroughly determined." 



The classification adopted in this Manual is that of l)r. 

 Paul Pelseneer in the " Treatise on Zoology," part v, Mollusca, 

 edited by E. Ray Lankester, 1906, with the exception that 

 the Pteropoda are treated as a class, according to the investi- 

 gations of P. Schiemenz. The Pteropods undoubtedly already 

 appear in the Palaeozoic, and not first in the Mesozoic as 

 Pelseneer's theory would have it. We therefore must conclude 

 that the Gastropods were derived from Pteropods, and not 

 from Opisthobranchs. The anatomical details of the higher 

 groups are, to a large extent, copied from Pelseneer's excellent 

 book. 



The Manual deals with the MoUxsca of the North and South 

 Islands of New Zealand, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, 

 and the subantarctic islands of New Zealand, including Macquarie 

 Island, but not with those of the Kermadec Islands, which 

 belong to a distinct province of the Australian subregion. Mr. 

 Tom Iredale, who was a member of the scientific exploring 

 expedition to the Kermadecs in 1908, has already published a 



