obtained in the Gulf of Suez. 323 



an opportunity so seldom occurs of investigating a collection 

 made by a skilled collector, which undoubtedly is derived 

 from the locality specified, and from that locality only. The 

 problem of the geographical distribution of the Mollusca will 

 never even approach solution until we have a number of such 

 collections as this to supply us with adequate data to work 

 upon. 



Two reasons have induced me to propose to reissue this 

 "Report" in an entirely new form — firstly, because in Mr. 

 MacAndrew's copy of his pamphlet, now in this museum, 

 numerous corrections and additions occur in his own hand- 

 writing ; secondly, because a careful examination showed that 

 a certain proportion of his identifications were wrong, and 

 therefore the catalogue as it stood was misleading. Whoever 

 helped him to determine his specimens had evidently gone 

 upon the principle of making as many species out of them as 

 possible (see, e. g., the list of Ancillaria below), and the cor- 

 rection of this tendency alone has meant a good deal of work. 

 I may further add that in the " Report " such an entry as 



" . Eleven species, undetermined," was not uncommon. 



Many of these have now been identified, while a few turn out 

 to be new species. 



The geographical affinities of the Suez shells have already 

 been remarked upon by Mr. Mac Andrew in his article. 

 Taking two genera only I find that 



Of 19 species of Cyprcea found at Suez, 



9 are common to the Sandwich Islands ; 

 6 „ „ Japan ;_ 



8 „ „ Australia ; 



5 „ „ Natal. 



Of 7 species of Triton found at Suez, 



2 are common to the Sandwich Islands ; 



2 . » » J a P<™ ; . 



1 is „ „ Australia. 



But I hope to deal more fully with the distribution of the 

 species at the end of this article. 



The localities that I have added are in every case drawn 

 from authentic sources, either from the ' Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society,' the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History,' various other scientific publications, or from private 

 sources of information on which I can rely. 



Words placed within square brackets are additions to or 

 corrections of the original article. 



