MOLLUSCA FROM ALPINE ZONE OF MOUNT KOSCrUSKO — IIEDLEY. 101 



NOTES ON MOLLUSCA from the ALPINE ZONE op 



MOUNT KOSCIUSKO. 



By C. Hedley, F.L.S. 



(Conchologist to the Australian Museum), 



[Plate XXIII.] 



The Alpine fauna and flora have elsewhere yielded such 

 interesting results that it is with pleasurable anticipations a 

 student turns to the consideration of this chapter in Australian 

 Biology. The restricted developement of high land here holds 

 out, however, no promise of a rich harvest. In Australia the 

 alpine zone is almost limited to the plateau of Mount Kosciusko, 

 an elevation so insignificant (7,256 ft.) that on other continents it 

 would rather be termed a hill than a mountain 



Two observers have contributed, especially to our knowledge 

 of the physical features of this district. In January, 1885, Dr. 

 R. von Lendenfeld made a brief reconnaissance and under the 

 titles of " Meteorology of Mount Kosciusko " and " The Glacial 

 Period in Australia " communicated some of his experiences of it 

 to the Linnean Society of New South Wales. A more detailed 

 account of his travels appeared as a Parliamentary Paper, 

 Sydney, 1885, and in Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1887. 



Later, several visits, the first under the auspices of this Institu- 

 tion, were paid by Mr. Richard Helms. In a " Report of a 

 Collecting Trip to Mount Kosciusko,"* in an essay " On the 

 recently observed evidences of an extensive Glacier Action at 

 Mount Kosciusko Plateau," f and in a paper now being published 

 by the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, N.S.W. Branch, 

 he has recorded observations on the geology and natural history of 

 the district. Considerable zoological collections were formed by 

 Mr. Helms, which have not yet been exhaustively investigated. 



"An isopod of a very old and greatly generalised type," J he 

 procured at the 5,700 level, was described by Dr. 0. Chilton§ as 

 Phreatoicus australis ; a species since collected at the 4000 ft. 

 level on Mount Wellington in Tasmania and which completes a 

 genus of two other species from South New Zealand. This 

 distribution supporting that of Geonemertes australiensis, Dendy,|| 



* Rec. Anstr. Mus. i., pp. 11-16. 



t Proc. Liun. Soc. N.S.W. (2) viii., pp. 349-364. 



i Thomson, Trans. Linn. Soc, Zool. (2) vi., p. 301. 



§ Eec. Austr. Mus. i., pp. 149-171. 



II Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (2) x., p. 372. 



