[CEYLON PEAEL OYSTEE FISHERIES L906 SUPPLEMENTARY REPORTS, No. XXXVIII.] 



REPORT 



ON TI1K 



MOLLUSCAN SHELLS 



COl.LECTKD BY 



Professoe HERDMAN, at CEYLON, in 1902. 



BY 



ROBERT STANDEN (Assistant Keeper, Manchester Museum), and 

 ALFRED LEICESTER (Liverpool), 



MEMBERS OF THE CONCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN, AND IRELAND. 



Professor Herdman has placed in our hands the collection of Mollusca* obtained 

 during his dredgings around the coasts of Ceylon, and of these we have now identified 

 373 Gastropoda, 5 Scaphopoda, and 142 Pelecypoda. In addition we have still 

 unidentified 1 Eitlima, 1 Afair/inclla, 1 Amphiperas, 2 Rissoina, 2 Triforis, 1 Den- 

 talium, 2 Cardinal, and a few bivalves which may possibly all prove new to science; 

 also some juvenile forms of doubtful identity ; and we much regret that the time at 

 our disposal, for the compilation of this Catalogue, does not allow of their more 

 critical examination. We propose at an early opportunity to investigate these 

 " remainders," and hope to publish the results in the ' Journal of Conchology.' 



The material chiefly consists of the larger-sized and well-known species, with a few 

 of the smaller forms described in recent years by the numerous workers on the 

 Molluscan Fauna of the Indo-Pacific region. The absence from Professor Herdman's 

 dredgings of the minutiora which have yielded such an abundance of new forms, 

 mostly endemic, in other collections, is somewhat remarkable, and can only be 

 accounted for on the supposition that the mesh of the dredge nets was too large to 

 retain such small objects. The Pyramidellidae, Rissoidse, and the smaller Pleuroto- 

 midse, &c, are barely represented, whilst such genera as Scala, Litiopa, Tornatina, 

 Cyclostrema and Bullia do not occur at all in this collection, common as they have 



* Separate Reports on the PoLYPLACOPHORA, by Mr. E. R. Sykes, on the Cephalopoda, by Dr. W. E. 

 Hoyi.e, and on the OPISTHOBRANCHIA, by Mr. G. P. Farran, have already appeared in this series. The 

 present Report deals with the shells of the remaining Mollusca collected. Ed. 



2 M 2 



