MISCELLxVNEA. 599 



4. Note o:n- a Shell feom Laeuan. 



"We have received tlie following letter : — 



Sir, — According to Chenu and AYoodward, tlie minute land- 

 sliell, Scoliostoma is known only as a fossil of tlie triassic limestone. 

 Having heard a few months ago that there was a curious little shell 

 on an island in this vicinity I one day made a trip to it. The 

 island is a mass of limestone, rising almost perpendicularly out of 

 the sea. It is about 80 yards in diameter, and about 30 feet high, 

 and is full of fissures and caverns, and, like all other islands in this 

 neighbourhood, is covered with vegetation. Upon a naked rock, well 

 protected from the heat of the sun by the surrounding trees, and 

 having upon it here and there scanty patches of moss, I found the 

 shell I was looking for. crawling among the short moss, by the hun- 

 dreds, I sent home some specimens to Mr. Stevens, of Blooms- 

 bury, but it was not until some time afterwards that I identified the 

 shell with the Scoliostoma of Chenu. I enclose you a few specimens, 

 should they chance to be destroyed by the way, you can procure some 

 more from Mr. Stevens. 



The Scoliostoma has never been found in any other habitat here- 

 abouts. The island of Labuan is for the most part sandstone, coal, 

 black sand, and ferruginous clay, but it has not as yet been observed 

 that there is any limestone formation. 



I enclose also a portion of the limestone from which the shells 

 were taken, and a piece of crystallized carbonate of lime from the 

 same mass. Should you publish this letter, it may perhaps lead to 

 a curious and interesting disquisition from some one of your more 

 learned readers upon this wonderful little link which connects the 

 present time with the remotest ages. 



I am Sir, yours, &c., 



C. C. de Crespig]st. 

 Island of Labuan, 15th March, 1865. 



[We have submitted the shells forwarded by our correspondent 

 to Mr. Henry AVoodward of the British Museum. Mr. Woodward 

 informs us that the specimens do not belong to the genus Scoli- 

 ostoma (which is a marine form from the trias), but are closely 

 allied to, if not identical with Opisthostoma, discovered in 1859, by 

 Messrs. H. F. and W. T. Blanford, near Pykara, on the Nilgiris, in 

 Southern India. — Ed.] 



