president's address — SECTION D. 95 



descriptions of Victorian forms, chiefly by Professor Tate, 

 enable us to institute some interesting comparisons between 

 Tasmania and the other colonies. In Tasmania the genus 

 Helix (as at present recognized) is re])resente(l by 64 species 

 of which no fewer than 59 are peculiar to the island. Of 

 the other eight, five ( H . m'-coyi, sUniieycnsis, otwaijensis, 

 tamarensis, and exoptata) are common to THSuiania and 

 Victoria, one only (H. pictilisj to Tasmania and \V. Aus- 

 traha, one only fH. hobartiaj to Tasmania, Victoi-ia, and S. 

 Australia, whilst one C ^- '^^ortlj has a wide distribution from 

 W. Australia to iVew South Wales. Thus Tasmania has in 

 all 7 species common to Victoria. If now we take the results 

 given by Professor Tate for the Land Shells of Victoria we 

 find that the latter is credited, as yet, with 18 species of 

 Helix — a very poor record as compared with the 64 of Tas- 

 mania, an equal number of New South Wales forms and more 

 than 40 of S. Australia. Of the Victorian 18, 8 are peculiar 

 to the colony and of the other 1 1 it has 7 in common with 

 Tasmania, 4 with New South Wales, 4 with S. Australia, and 

 1 with W. Australia It has none common to itself and onlv 

 one other colony except in the case of Tasmania where there 

 are 5. We find also that the genus Helicarioji is represented 

 in Tasmania by two species f H. verreauxi and inilligani.J The 

 former is widely distributed, being found also in the islands 

 in Bass Straits and is common to Victoria where it occurs 

 widely distributed south of the Dividing' Range, being- 

 recorded from C. Otway, Fernshaw, Gippsland and as far 

 east as Sale. A second Victorian form C^- atramentaria) 

 is recorded only from ^^'esternport. Neither Victoria nor 

 Tasmania have any species in common with New South 

 Wales. The genus Bidimus is rejiresented by two species in 

 Tasmania, one of which (13. dnfresNiJ is very widely 

 distributed and occurs on the islands in Bass Straits, whilst a 

 second, which has been described as H. 'i'asmanicus, appears 

 to be identical with a fossil from, B. yunnl, found in Kent 

 Island and in the 'yellow limestone' of Hobart. The genus 

 Succinea is represented by two species in Tasmania of which 

 one (S. JeqrandiJ is peculiar to it, whilst another (S. 

 auslralis) is widely distributed, occurs in the islands of the 

 Straits and passes over to the mainland where it occurs in 

 Victoria and S. Australia. The genus Truncatella is, so far 

 as Tasmania is concerned, confined to the islands of Bass 

 Straits whei'e three species are probably present, living 

 between tide marks on the sea shore ( T. scalarina, tasmanica. 



