COCHLOSTYLA OF MINDORO PROVINCE 375 



On January 24, 1842, a party of the United States Exploring Expe- 

 dition stopped on the southwest corner of Mindoro and must have 

 secured quite a lot of conspicuous shells, at least so the collections in 

 the United States National Museum would indicate. 



Dr. Carl Semper conducted scientific explorations in the Philippines 

 between 1858 and 1864, which have resulted in that splendid series of 

 volumes known as Semper's Reisen im Archipel der Philippinen. 



Semper's servant, Antonio Angara, made a trip to northeastern 

 Mindoro, which resulted in the discovery of some members of the 

 genus Cochlostyla. 



During the Spanish regime and up to the American conquest of the 

 Philippines, J. F. Quadras occupied the position of chief forester of the 

 islands. Quadras was an enthusiastic shell collector, and I was told 

 by members of his family during my sojourn in the islands that he 

 would appoint no one to his staff unless the appointee had similar 

 tendencies. This was undoubtedly responsible for the magnificent 

 collection that he amassed, which was displayed in the Philippine 

 Section during the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904. This collection 

 was offered for sale in America by his son who failed to find a pur- 

 chaser. It was stored for some time in the Chicago Academy of 

 Sciences and then returned to Manila, where it now rests in the 

 Philippine Bureau of Science, except for a set acquired by the Chicago 

 Academy of Sciences and by them sold to the United States National 

 Museum. 



Quadras' finds were largely described by Dr. O. F. von Mollendorff 

 and Joaquin G. Hidalgo, of Madrid, Spain. Many things from 

 Mindoro Province are in the Quadras collections. 



Dr. Otto Franz von Mollendorff, German Consul at Manila from 

 1886 to 1896, made known to the world the minute mollusks of the 

 Philippines. His efforts added more than 800 species. His splendid 

 collection rests in the Senckenbergische naturforschende Gesellschaft 

 in Frankfurt-am-Main, from which a set of his duplicates has been 

 secured for the United States National Museum, among which most 

 of the old species from Mindoro are represented. 



In 1887-8, Dr. J. B. Steere, with Dr. Frank S. Bourns, E. L. Moseley, 

 Dean C. Worcester, and Mateo Francisco, collected natural-history 

 material in the Philippines, Worcester and Bourns spending some time 

 in northeastern Mindoro until forced out by malaria. 



Two years later Worcester, Bourns, and Francisco, while on the 

 Menage Expedition, made two trips to Mindoro, collecting from 

 Calapan south to Lake Naujan and west to Mount Halcon. They 

 made a splendid collection of mollusks, securing large series of the 

 larger species represented in the region. This collection, which for a 

 time rested in the Minnesota Academy of Sciences, has been purchased 

 by the United States National Museum and has been available for 

 study. 



