AN INDEX TO THE LAND SHELLS OF VICTORIA. 
By J. C. Cox, M.D., and C. Hedley, F.LS. 
(Plates I., II., III.) 
At the invitation of the Director of the National Museum, Mel- 
bourne, we have undertaken a brief survey of the land shells of 
Victoria. Material from the National Museum and from the private 
collection of Mr. J. A. Kershaw has been confided to us. We have 
also drawn upon the resources of the Cox collection and of the 
Australian Museum, Sydney. Previous studies on the Tasmanian 
land shells* by the late Mr. W. F. Petterd and one of us, formed a 
suitable introduction to the present task. 
But little attention has yet been paid to the land molluscan 
fauna of the State. Recently Dr. T. 8. Hall wrote, “‘ As to our land 
and fresh water mollusca, again, we in Victoria are sadly in the 
dark. Collecting has been done in the south-west of the State, but 
the rest is a blank.” Although the search has not been exhaustive 
and several species doubtless await discovery, sufficient has been 
done to show that Victoria is poorer in land shells than other parts 
of Australia. Professor Tate, in discussing this remarkable paucity, 
suggested that “A deluge of igneous mass must have destroyed 
terrestrial forms of life over the greater part of the southern region 
of Victoria.”’f 
Probably the first conchologists to work in Victoria were the 
naturalists of the Astrolabe, who, in 1826, visited Western Port and 
found Helicarion cuvieri and Succinea australis. In 1868, but five 
species, including two lately collected by Mr. G. Masters, were 
recorded from Victoria, in Dr. Cox’s Monograph of Australian Land 
Shells. A few more species have since been added by desultory 
collecting. In the earliest paper written exclusively on the molluscs 
of Victoria, Mr. Maplestone observed the scarcity of land shells 
around Melbourne.§ In 1884, Professor Tate published a list and 
general discussion of the land shells. It was his intention to 
complete this preliminary statement by a more detailed study, 
but the increasing pressure of an active life gave him no further 
opportunity of resuming the subject. 
An account of the land and freshwater mollusca of Castlemaine 
was more recently published by Mr. F. L. Billinghurst.|| 
During the preparation of this report, our friend the veteran 
conchologist, Mr. W. F. Petterd, passed away. He took a keen 
interest in the subject, and had generously assisted us with speci- 
mens and information. 
* Petterd and Hedley. Rec. Austr. Mus., vii., 1909, pp. 283-304, pls. lxxxii. “lxxxvii. 
t+ Hall. Victorian Naturalist, xxvi., 1910, p. 126. 
t Tate. Trans. Roy. Soc., 8.A., iv., 1882, p. 74. 
§ Maplestone. Monthly M icroscopical Journal, viii., 1872, p. 53. 
|| Billinghurst. Victorian Naturalist, x., 1893, p. 61. 
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