67 



THE LAND MOLLUSCAN FAUNA OF BRITISH NEW 



GUINEA. 



By C. Hedley, F.L.S., Corr. Mem. 



(Plates ix. -xi I. and XII. bis.) 



To naturalists generally the " Land of the Bird of Paradise " 

 has ever been a source of interest, but to Australian students such 

 a land, whose past history is intimately bound up with that of our 

 own continent, should be especially attractive. Many archaic 

 forms doubtless survive in that vast unknown region whose moun- 

 tains, the loftiest in Australasia, possess every climate from the 

 cold zone above the tree line to the tropical jungles of the littoral. 

 Twenty years ago the coast of British New Guinea was a blank 

 on the map, being less known than that of any country outside the 

 Polar regions, and to-day the interior is almost entirely unexplored. 

 What scanty information we possess concerning its fauna and flora 

 is, therefore, of recent date. The first fruits of the conchological 

 harvest were gathered by the naturalists of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," 

 who visited the Louisiades in 1849-50, and described by Forbes in 

 an appendix to the account of that voyage. Sir W. Macleay, in 

 1875, touched at Yule Island in the " Chevert," in which neigh- 

 bourhood many new species were obtained by his staff, descriptions 

 of which by Brazier will be found in the earlier volumes of this 

 Society's Proceedings. During the same and following years 

 D'Albettis amassed, both on Yule Island and the Fly River, a 

 fine collection of mollusca which were subsequently treated of by 

 Tapparone-Canefri (Annali del Museo Civico di Genova, xix.). A 

 trader and collector, Mr. A. Goldie, procured many shells during 

 various excursions along the coast and in the interior, most of 

 which went to the British Museum, and were described by Smith 

 in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. In 1889 a 



