NO. 1704. A COLLECTION OF SHELLS FROM PERU— BALL. 187 



these collections during the first half of the nineteenth century, and, 

 according to Woodward, ** Mr. Cuming's collection embraced 222 species 

 from the coast of Peru south of Paita, and 172 species from the coast 

 then politically included in Chile. Of these probably half were com- 

 mon to the northern and southern portions of the province. A little 

 later the explorations of Humboldt and Bonpland added a few 

 species; the majority of their collection it would seem were not 

 worked up. 



M. Alcide D'Orbigny's wSoutli American investigations seem to have 

 been, so far as this province is concerned, largel}^ restricted to the 

 Chilean portion of it. He collected 160 species, one-half of which 

 were common to Chile and Peru, while only one species was common 

 to Callao and Paita. The inference naturally drawn from this last 

 fact by Woodward and others was that the northern border of the 

 province lay between those two ports. But this conclusion was due 

 to imperfect knowledge, and is completely refuted by later information. 

 At present more than 200 species are known to be common to Paita 

 and Callao. 



Orbigny's report with its atlas of fine illustrations is a classic 

 source for information, relating, however, to South America as a whole, 

 rather than to the Peruvian Province.'' 



Collections made by Gay and others, worked up in his monographic 

 Historia de Chile, by Hupe, form the third large and well-illustrated 

 contribution to the malacology of the province, chiefly restricted of 

 course to the southern, or Chilean, portion. 



The last important contributor to a knowledge of this fauna, in 

 these earlier days, was the German naturalist Philippi, who added 

 numerous species and useful illustrations in the Zeitschrift fiir Mala- 

 kozoologie, his Abbildungen, and his Atacama Reise. 



Of course many minor contributors to the work, such as Lesson, 

 Jonas, etc., might be mentioned, but I propose in this hasty sketch to 

 touch only on the most important. The list of Tschudi's collection, 

 ostensibly from Peru, as described by Troschel, unfortunately contains 

 numerous exotic Indo-Pacific and Panamic species, so that its au- 

 thority is seriously impaired. 



More recently the researches of Ludwig Plate, the Princess of 

 Bavaria, and others mentioned in the bibliography have added 

 essentially to our knowledge. 



In considering the distribution of species along the coast of the 

 province it should not be forgotten that the collections have not 

 been made in an equal manner on different parts of the coast. The 



"Manual, p. 376. 



b In my references to this work, for simplicity and convenience, I have omitted the 

 article, since there seems to be no particular reason why we should reserve for D'Or- 

 bigny what custom has denied to De la Marck and De la Cepede. 



