6 DISTRIBUTION OF QUEENSLAND GASTEROPODA. 



Just as the most westerly region in which the Malay 

 race exists is the island of Madagascar, so this Indo-Pacific 

 molluscan region, w4th its centre of distribution in Malaysia, 

 has for its western frontier the eastern coast of Africa, 76 

 species found on the northern or eastern coasts of Queensland 

 being reported from such distant localities as Xatal, Mada- 

 gascar, Mozambique and Zanzibar. A common shell of our 

 Earricr Reef — Septa aquatile, Reeve, better known as 

 Triton pilearis, L., is reported from the following localities : 

 — Ivatal, Seychelles, Red Sea, China, Japan, Philippines, 

 Australia, the Sandwich Islands, and, still stranger from 

 Florida and Brazil. The genera best represented and most 

 widely spread are Cerithium, (^Aromhus, Couus, Ovula and 

 Purpura (Thais). 



This great province, formed of the two oceans that have 

 no north and south barriers, and in which therefore the great 

 equatorial current is not deflected into frigid regions, ex- 

 tends also into the Red Sea, where 147 species are common 

 to that sea and to the shores of Queensland. The genera 

 best represented are '.—Cer'thium, Stromhus, Triton (Cyma- 

 tium), Randla (Bursa), Conns, Pyramidella, Drillia and 

 Mitra. So strong is the relationship between the Red Sea 

 molluscs and those of Queensland, that of 573 species, enumer- 

 ated in IsseFs Malacologia del Mar Rosso, no less than 133, 

 inhabit the seas of our State. It is necessary to mention 

 that Issel's list contains bivalves as well as gasteropods. 



Woodward* in his Manual of the Mollusca, says, '' of 

 the 408 mollusca of the Red Sea collected by Ehrenberg 

 and Hemprich, 74 are common to the Mediterranean 

 from which it would seem that these seas have communicated 

 since the first appearance of some existing shells. Of the 

 species common to the two seas, 40 are Atlantic shells 

 which have migrated into the Red Sea by way of the 

 Mediterranean, probably during the newer Pliocene period ; 

 the others are Indo-Pacific shells which extended their 

 I'ange to the Mediterranean at an earlier age.'' Fisher f 

 points out that this statement is in part incorrect, some 

 of the so-called Red Sea shells having been collected off 



♦Reprint of 4th Edition, 1890, p. -7.3. 

 fManuel de Conchjliologie, p. 159. 



