154 ON A NEW PATELLA. 



If such a conspicuous species as this Patella exists on the 

 Kermadec Islands, I cannot but think that it would have been 

 found long since. The late John Macgillivray visited the Ker- 

 madecs in H.M.S. "Herald" in 1854, and collected there for 

 some weeks while Captain Denham and his officers were engaged 

 in making surveys. The specimens so obtained were forwarded 

 to the British Museum, but they did not include this Patella, or 

 if they did it was never recorded. 



My father during his whaling cruises sixty years ago visited 

 the islands, and collections of shells were made, but no examples 

 of this Patella were ever so obtained. Moreover, to the half- 

 starved white people who lived upon the islands for some years, 

 such an addition to the larder as this Patella would have afforded 

 would not have been by any means to be despised. 



In my opinion, therefore, Patella Kermadecensis, Pilsbry, is a 

 misnomer, and the locality given for it, the Kermadec Islands, 

 simply the invention of a New Zealand dealer, who to my know- 

 ledge gives Pandora rostrata, Lam., a well-known shell found in 

 European seas, as dredged off the Three Kings, North Cape of 

 New Zealand. Instances are known to me, too, in which South 

 Sea Island species, and even Australian species, have been palmed 

 off as from New Zealand. 



It should also be borne in mind that large numbers of shells 

 from the Cape of Good Hope are constantly being brought to 

 Australia by the passengers and sailors of the large mail steamers. 



