TERRESTRIAL AND FLUVIATILE 

 MOLLUSCA. 



The character of the Molluscan Fauna of Palestine partakes, as might 

 have been expected, of the same variety which marks the other branches 

 of its Fauna and Flora. There are, however, fewer exceptions to its 

 general character as a part of the Mediterranean basin, and fewer traces 

 of the admixture of African and Indian forms. Northern types, especially 

 of the genus Clausilia, are frequent in the Lebanon and on its southern 

 spurs in Galilee. The Molluscan Fauna of the maritime plains and the 

 coast possesses no features distinct from those of Lower Egypt and Asia 

 Minor. The shells of the central region are scarce and not generally 

 interesting ; while on the borders of the Jordan valley and in the southern 

 wilderness we meet with very distinct groups of Helix and of Bnliimts, 

 chiefly of species peculiar, or common in some few cases to the Arabian 

 desert. 



The fluviatile Mollusca are of a type very much more tropical in its 

 character than that of the terrestrial shells. There are here but few 

 species similar to those of the east of Europe. Most of the species are 

 identical with, or similar to, those of the Nile and of the Euphrates; and 

 some of the genus Mclanopsis, and no less than sixteen Unios, are 

 peculiar to the Jordan or its feeders. It seems probable that the 

 inhabitants of the waters were better able to sustain the cold of the 

 glacial epoch than the mollusks of the land ; and from the post-tertiary 

 remains found by the Dead Sea we may infer that the species now 

 existing have been transmitted from a period antecedent to the glacial ; 

 while the more boreal forms introduced at that epoch have maintained 

 their existence in the colder districts of Northern Palestine to the 



