Art. XXII. — Catalogue of the Marine Sliells of Victoria. 



Part I. 

 By G. B. Pritchard aud J. H. Gatliff. 



[Eead 9th December, 1897.] 



Intkoduction. 



It may not be out of 2:)lace, perhaps, if we give at the outset 

 a brief account of previous work on this subject. 



Most of the very early work may be found in the reports of 

 the voyages of various exploring vessels, but these at present 

 call for no special remark, references to them will be found in 

 their proper places. 



The Rev. J. E. T. Woods was early in the field; during the 

 years 1875 to 1879 he contributed largely on the shells of 

 Tasmania, and, as would naturally be expected, a large amount 

 of the material dealt with can also be obtained in Victoria. 

 What has become of many of his types is unfortunately unknown 

 to us, and as most of his work was not illustrated it is generally 

 a difficult matter to fix his species. In 1877 he furnished a very 

 useful census of the Marine Shells of Tasmania and the adjacent 

 islands, in which may be found several references to Victorian 

 occurrences. In the same year, and again in 1880, he described 

 a number of new species in the Transactions and Proceedings of 

 the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Although a great many of this gentleman's species have been 

 relegated to synonymy, he must be credited with having done a 

 great amount of useful work, particularly when the difficulty of 

 obtaining access to the necessary works of reference is fully 

 understood, and also the difficulty of interpreting wretchedly 

 poor and meagre descriptions, frequently without figures or with 

 figures that cannot possibly be recognised as representing the 

 species, even by a stretch of the imagination. 



In 1887 Mr. J. H. Gatlitt" published Part I. of a list of some 

 of the Shells of the Marine Mollusca found upon the coast of 



