PREFACE. 



EECEIVING some years ago a quantity of shells from Port 

 Elizabeth, some of which I could not identify with any that 

 had been described, I contributed a paper to the ' Journal of 

 Conchology,' January 1886, consisting of a list of those I had 

 identi6ed, and descriptions of those which appeared to be 

 new. This led to the publication of two subsequent papers 

 in the same Journal, through my communications to the 

 Conchological Society in 1889, considerably increasing the 

 list. Since then, various friends in South Africa have 

 discovered many additional species, r some of which are well- 

 known inhabitants of other coasts, but not previously recorded 

 as South African. 



The purpose of the present work is to give in a small 

 compass a list, as complete as possible, of all the known 

 Marine Shells of South Africa, with references to figures in 

 well-known works, descriptions of new species, and figures 

 not only of these, but of some that have been described 

 from time to time by other authors without figures. 



The total number of species enumerated is 740. Of 

 these, 67 are also found in European seas, 340 are known 

 to inhabit other coasts, and the remaining 323 are, as far as 

 is known, confined to South Africa. 



The labour of sorting and identifying so many species 

 (many of them very minute) has been considerable, and the 



