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EEVISION OF THE NEW ZEALAND POLYPLACOPHORA. 



By Henry Suter, Christchurch, New Zealand. 



Read %th January, 1897. 



Ever since the publication of Mr. H. A. Pilsbry's Monograph on tlie 

 Polyplacophora, the collecting and studying of Chitons have been my 

 special hobby. I have been fortunate enough to collect in different 

 jiarts of New Zealand, and thus have brought together a good number 

 of specimens. Other circuyistances have also been favourable to the 

 investigation of oiir Chitons. In 1894-5 Mr. T. P. Cheeseman, 

 Ciirator of the Auckland Museum, commissioned me to rearrange the 

 collections of shells, fossils, etc., in the Museum, and I had, of course, 

 a good opportunity to collect and study the Chitons of the Auckland 

 province. In December, 1895, I availed myself of a kind invitation 

 from Mr. A. Hamilton, Registrar of the Otago University, Dunedin, 

 and spent several weeks in the examination of his large conchological 

 collection, and he kindly presented me with specimens, amongst which 

 were some Chitons of special interest. Professor T. J. Parker, Curator 

 of the Otago Museum, was good enough to send me all the New 

 Zealand Polyplacophora in the Museum for investigation ; 8ir 

 James Hector, Director of the Colonial Museum, "Wellington, with 

 great liberality lent me some of the type-specimens mentioned in 

 Captain Hutton's paper on the New Zealand Chitonidos (Trans. New 

 Zealand Inst., vol. iv) ; and last, but not least, Captain P. W. Huttou, 

 Curator of the Canterbury Museum, has always kindly allowed me to 

 examine specimens in the Museum, and has greatly helped me in my 

 studies with his large store of knowledge and experience. I wish 

 here to express my gratitude to all these gentlemen for the help 

 accorded me in this special work, 



I must also say that this revision of the New Zealand Chitons would 

 almost have been an impossibility without the elaborate monograph 

 of Mr. H. A. Pilsbry. The identification of several of our Chitons, 

 however, was not quite satisfactory, the occurrence of certain species 

 in New Zealand waters was doubtful, and so on. 



I hope that I have succeeded in this short paper in clearing up some 

 of the dubious points, and in gi'S'ing a reliable list. 



Captain Hutton's list of the New Zealand Chitonida?, published in 

 1872 (Trans. New Zealand Inst., vol. iv), contains twenty -one species, 

 of which, however, one is a synonym and three are questionable for 

 New Zealand. E. von Martens, in his " Critical List of the Mollusca 

 of New Zealand" (1873), enumerates seventeen species; and Captain 

 Hutton, in the "Manual of the New Zealand Mollusca," brings the 

 list up to twenty-eight species, six of which, however, have to be 

 omitted as being synonyms or doubtful for our colony. 



The present list includes ten genera, with twenty-nine species, all of 

 which I have seen, except Plaxiphora ohteda, P. sujjerba, and Sjwnjio- 

 chiton produdus. 



