271 



THE POLYPLACOPHORA OF LORD HOWE AND 

 NORFOLK ISLANDS. 



By Charles Hedley and A. F. Basset Hull. 

 (Plates xi.-xiii.) 



The only reference to the Polyplacophora of Lord Howe Island 

 known to us, occurs in Memoirs No. 2 of the Australian Museum, 

 " Lord Howe Island, Its Zoology, Geology, and Physical Char- 

 acters. "'(Sydney, 1889). In the portion of this Memoir devoted 

 to General Zoology, the following paragraph appears : — " The 

 Chitonidse are sparsely represented by a small Chiton, and two 

 species of Anthochites, and were attached to stones on the Coral- 

 reef." No description of these shells was published, and the 

 present whereabouts of the specimens collected is not known to 

 us. The Norfolk Island Polyplacophora appear to have been 

 entirely neglected. 



One of us(A.F.B.H.) spent three weeks at Lord Howe Island 

 in 1907, and five weeks at Norfolk Island in 1908. During these 

 visits, every accessible reef and rock-pool on each Island was 

 thoroughly searched, and a fairly good collection of the group 

 was made. The services of local residents have since been requi- 

 sitioned, but the result did not add any new species to the collec- 

 tion, and confirmed the conclusions already arrived at as to the 

 comparative rarity of certain species. 



These results have been carefully worked out, and the follow- 

 ing descriptive list of nine species, hitherto undescribed, is now 

 presented . 



Five genera are I'epresented, viz.: — Chiton, Ischnochiton, Oni- 

 thochiton, Acmifhochites, and Lepidopleurus. Four species are 

 peculiar to Lord Howe Island, three are peculiar to Norfolk 

 Island, and twcj are common to both localities. None of them 

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