114 THE NAUTILUS. 



Clapp, of Pittsburg, Pa., informs me tliat Vallonia has adapted itself 

 to open life and can now be collected in immense numbers in places 

 very different from its original haunts. Tlie question of the adapta- 

 tion of mollusks to changed conditions is one of great interest, and in 

 no country can the subject be so well studied as in America, where 

 man and man's inventions change the whole face of an immense tract 

 of country in a very short time. We know that the object of mol- 

 luscan life (and in fact all life) is to preserve its own existence and 

 to reproduce its own species. With rapidly-changing conditions, the 

 snail must either adapt itself to these conditions or cease to exist, and 

 it will be most interesting for many years to come to watch the strug- 

 gle and to record the cases of success or failure. Complete local lists 

 of species carefully made up, collections of large series of species from 

 every possible locality and a knowledge of that locality and its con- 

 ditions, will enable all students in this branch of molluscan evolution 

 to arrive at a convincing and satisfactory conclusion. While in the 

 older countries of Europe the forest snail has become now adapted to 

 open country life, we have no records to bear upon the time when 

 this change was taking place, and in all probability it was much more 

 gradual than will be the case in this country of rapid and great 

 changes. 



> 



NEW LAND SHELLS OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE. 



BY H. A. PILSBRY AND Y. HIRASE. 



As already stated in a former number of the NAUTILUS, Mr t 

 Nakada spent the autumn in exploration in the Hokuriku region, 

 which includes provinces along the west coast of middle Hondo. 

 The material examined shows that area to have but few endemic 

 species, most of those collected being widely-distributed forms, already 

 well known from other places. He reached Sado Island, where he 

 found numerous species, the more interesting being a handsome new 

 Euhadra, a sharply-carinate new Helicina, and specimens of Blan- 

 fordia japonica A. Adams. This last is perfectly distinct from the 

 mainland form I called B.jap. van simplex, which will now be raised 

 to specific rank. B. japonica has a strong rounded ridge or varix 

 behind the lip, such as is seen in many Truncatellas. Mr. Nakada 

 returned to Kyoto, and started, November 5th, for Tosa province, in 



