1896. SOME NEW BOOKS.. 55 



Catalogue of the Marine Mollusks of Japan, with descriptions of new species 

 and notes on others collected by F. Stearns. By H. A. Pilsbry. 8vo. 

 Pp. viii., 196, with ii plates, l^etroit; 1895. Price, paper, |i ; cloth, $1.50. 



Japan, like Africa, not only largely attracts public attention just now, 

 but also may be said always to furnish something new. Certainly its 

 moUuscan fauna seems far from being worked out, if one may judge 

 from the results obtained by Mr. F. Stearns (who must not be con- 

 fused, by the bye, with Dr. R. E. C. Stearns, the conchologist) 

 during two visits of some duration to that fascinating region. This 

 traveller was not content wnth the casual speciinens collected by him- 

 self or procurable in the markets, but employed an intelligent Japanese 

 fisherman, Morita Seto by name, to traverse the entire east coast 

 and to visit the Loo Choo Islands on his behalf. The outcome has 

 been eminently satisfactory, as evinced by the contents of the admir- 

 ably got up volume before us, the publisher of which, moreover, is 

 Mr. Stearns himself. 



It is now thirteen years since the last list of the marine mollusca 

 of Japan was issued by Dunker, so that a considerable addition to 

 the number of known forms was to be expected : the present cata- 

 logue, however, contains about 500 species more than enumerated by 

 Dunker, including forty beheved to be new, and that although a con- 

 siderable number of forms included by him have been sunk as 

 synonyms or rejected from the Japanese list. In addition, very many 

 individuals belonging to the famiHes Rissoidae, Eulimidae, and Pyra- 

 midellidae remain unidentified. Of these some are thought to be new, 

 but " the hterature of these groups," Mr. Pilsbry remarks, with more 

 force of language than the occasion justifies, " has been so over- 

 loaded wdth Arthur Adams' descriptions which do not describe, that 

 intelligent work upon the Japanese forms is impossible. The litera- 

 ture of descriptive zoology furnishes but few instances of work more 

 superficial and Vv^orthless than that of this industrious dilettante." 



The title of the work leaves much to be desired, for it gives no 

 hint of the fact that the Braohiopoda are included ; nor would the 

 student of non-marine forms e^cpect to find new species of Helices or 

 other land mollusca. The concluding 34 pages, however, contain by 

 way of appendix a " List of the Land and Freshwater Mollusks 

 collected in Japan by F. Stearns," and a " List of Mollusca in the 

 Collection of F. Stearns from, the Middle Loo Choo Islands, with 

 Descriptions of New Species," A very sHght modification of the 

 title-page would have obviated this inconvenience. 



The classification employed is, we are told, " not entirely that of 

 any one of the Manuals," which can readily be credited, for what 

 self-respecting manual would venture to lump together three forms of 

 Cyclophoridae, a Cyclotus and :iHelicina, to dub them " Operculata," in 

 the same type as the surrounding family names, and plump them in 

 between " Limnaeidae " and " Viviparidse " ? " The current generic 

 nomenclature has been revised in certain cases," but not in others : 

 why return to Aspeygillum when Brechites has long been shown to have 

 priority ? 



A truce, though, to these minor criticisms ! The work is a 

 most useful one, and will prove invaluable to future investigators 

 of the Japanese molluscan fauna, whilst one cannot fail to be 

 struck by the abihty and energy of the man who, in the midst of 

 curatorial duties and the heavy work of the Manual with which his 

 name is so honourably connected, can find time to throw off, as it 

 were, a volume of this importance. The plates, too, must be highly 



