228 LAND AND FRESHWATEE 



there was no one better qualified to write, both from his vast 

 knowledge of the country and its fauna, particularly of the 

 Vertebrates. 



In a paper entitled " Notes on AriopJianta, Xestina, JS'ilgiria, 

 and Eiiplecta, with Lists of Species," read June 1901, Blanford 

 says in the opening part : — " \\ e are indebted to Colonel Godwin- 

 Austen for the remarkable discovery that in certain areas of the 

 Indo-Malay (Indian or Oriental) region, members of the Limacidae 

 (Zonitidae) having shells so diverse that they were formerly classed 

 in distinct genera, or even in some cases in different families 

 or subfamilies, agree amongst themselves in each area and diti'er 

 from those in other areas by characteristic details in the anatomy — 

 details which, in the presence of the extraordinary similarity which 

 prevails throughout the greater portion of the Terrestrial Pulmonata, 

 are sufficient to distinguish each local group. This discovery has 

 entirely upset all previous attempts at the classification of the 

 Indo-Malay Limacidse, and at present we can only arrange the 

 species known in provisional local generic sections. 



" A considerable proportion of the larger forms of Limacidse 

 in Peninsular India and Ceylon, formerly referred to Malayan 

 and Philippine genera like Eemiplecta and Xesta, have now been 

 shown to belong to one or another of the genera cited in the title 

 of this paper. In consequence of Godwin-Austen's recent work, 

 some of the results of which, not yet published, he has com- 

 municated to me, it is now practicable to arrange generically 

 many of the species known to occur in the zoological subregion 

 consisting of India south of the Himalayas and Ceylon — the area 

 Avhich I have proposed to call the Cisgangetic Subregion. It is 

 true that the animals of several species in addition to those already 

 dissected require examination before their affinities can be correctly 

 ascertained, but still an attempt can now be made at classification. 



" Amongst the species that still require examination are Heliv 

 lasikus *, Bs. (the shell of which closely resembles that of certain 

 Siamese forms of Bemiplecta), H. hasilessa, Bs., H. concavospira, Pfr., 

 and H. apicata, Blf. 



" In drawing up lists of the species, it must be understood that 

 I accept Godwin-Austen's view (' Land and Freshwater Moll. Ind.' 

 vol. i. p. 133 ; vol. ii. p. 82) that Arioj^hanta should be restricted 

 to Indian (Cisgangetic) species ; also that his subgenus JSUrjiria 

 {op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 77, 81, 123) is distinguished from Ariophanta 

 solely by having dextral instead of sinistral shells— a character 

 which I agree with him in regarding as of no real importance, — 

 and that for the present, at all events, the genus Euplecta (op. cit. 

 vol. ii. p. 96) should be confined to forms inhabiting India and 

 Ceylon." 



In 1899 t I wrote as follows : — " When one examines the genera 

 from South India and Ceylon, one cannot but fail to be impressed 

 with the many important points in their anatomy which differentiate 



* Since described and placed in the genus Ariophanta (Nilgiria), Proc. 

 Malacol. Soc. Lond. vol. v. pt, 3 (Oct. 1902). 



t Proc. Malacol. Soc. Lond. vol. iii. pt. 5 (July 1899). 



