December ^tli, 1 8gc)?^ Proceedings. ix 



^Microscopical and Natural History Section.^ 



Ordinary Meeting, December 4th, 1899. 

 CiiARLKs Uailkv, F.L.S., President of tiie Section, in the Chair. 



ivlr. Jamks Cosmo Mki.vii.i. read the following notes : 

 {a) " Notes on two collections of Terrestrial Mol- 

 lusca from Socotra. " 



The island of Socotra, with the smaller islets Abd-el-K.uri and 

 Brothers, lies almost due east of Cape Guardafui, Somaliland, 

 and is situate at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, Long. 53° E., 

 Lat. 12° N. The main island is about 100 miles in length by 

 about 50 in breadth. 



The terrestrial moUusca of this island and its neighbouring 

 islets (Abd-el-Kuri being about 100 miles from the mainland, 

 and 30 from Socotra), have till lately been studied very 

 cursorily. In 18S1, Mr. Godwin- Austen described in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society some new forms, and during 

 the past two years Mr. Kdgar Smith has given to the world some 

 additional descriptions of new forms collected (i) by Mr. and 

 Mrs. Theodore Bent in 1896-97, and (2) by the recent expedition 

 made by Dr. H. O. Forbes, of the Liverpool Museum, and Mr. 

 Ogilvie Grant, of the British Museum. 



Fischer, in \\\?, Manuel de Cojichylioloj^ie, mentions only fourteen 

 species as being known from these islands (1887), these being 

 mainly Bidiminus, E/inca, Lit hid ion, Otopoma, Stenogyra, and 

 Planorbis. The moUusca all belong to the Arabo-East-Ethiopian 

 types, as might be expected, being generically almost identical 

 with the few known from South Arabia (Dhoferand Hadramant), 

 and some of which I was myself privileged to describe in 1895 

 for the Theodore Bent Expedition, Buliminiis, Otopoma, 

 Planorbis, and Sie?w^:vra being also in that case the prevalent 

 forms. The same holds good with what is known of the fauna 

 of Somaliland. 



Among the most interesting forms collected by the Forbes- 



