157 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHAROPID/E. 



Part I. 



By 0. Hedley, F.L.S. 



(Plates I. and ii.) 



Widespread throughout Australia and Polynesia is a group of 

 land shells which, varying greatly among its membeis, yet appears 

 clearly distinguishable from other orders by the small size of its 

 species, their cancellated sculpture, in which stout ribs are a 

 prominent feature, flame painting, straight sharp peristome, 

 which describes a convex then a concave sweep on approaching 

 the right insertion, and a projecting semitransparent callus, 

 which buries the sculpture of the whorl on which it encroaches. 

 For this group I provisionally accept the title Charojnda'., assigned 

 by Hutton, 1884 (Trans. N. Zealand Inst. xvi. p. 199), extending, 

 however, the limits indicated by that writer. His vague diagnosis 

 runs as follows : " Animal heliciform with an external shell ; tail 

 with a mucous gland." No type is nominated by the author of 

 the family, and I therefore suggest that the type of Charopidce 

 would naturally be the genus Charopa, Albers, whose type species 

 is C. coma, Gray. I quote from " Die Heliceen," 2nd ed. p. 87, 

 the original definition of that genus. 



Charopa, Albers (1860). 



" Testa umbilicata, tenuis, depressa, raro conica, plicis trans- 

 versis, elevatis, pilis rigidulis sparse saepissime obsilis, costulata ; 

 anfractus 4-5^, ultimus antice non descendens ; apertura parum 

 obliqua, lunato-rotundata ; peristoma simplex, marginibus conni- 

 ventibus." 



