PREFACE. 



In 1889-90 I spent nearly a year in Japan and some few weeks in 

 China. I went for health and pleasure, devoting much of my time to 

 making a collection of Japanese art objects, which now is arranged, 

 catalogued and mounted, as a donation to the Detroit Art Museum. 

 I also attempted to make a collection of the Molluscan Fauna of 

 Japan, and was assisted in that purpose by an intelligent Japanese 

 who was in my employ during my entire stay in that country. He 

 visited at intervals the entire east coast from Tokyo along Sagama 

 and Saruga, down along Kii, Awa and Toza, along the north shore 

 of the Inland Sea as far as Bingo, in communication with the fisher- 

 men, who gather not only fish but largely mollusks, mostly by dredge 

 nets, in water sometimes as deep as thirty fathoms. This region lies 

 between 33 and 36 north latitude, and between 133 and 141 east 

 longitude, and this collection may be fairly said to represent the 

 Marine Fauna of that limit. It is on this east coast, moreover, that 

 the Kuro-Shiwo, or Gulf Stream of the Pacific, trends to the north 

 east, and which accounts probably for finding occasionally the more 

 strictly tropical species of mollusca. 



On arriving home and sending specimens of my shells to the Phil- 

 adelphia Academy of Natural Sciences for comparison and determin- 

 ation, I have been delighted to find that Prof. H. A. Pilsbry speaks 

 of it in high terms. I quote as follows from his letter to me of 

 November i9th, 1890: 



" Your collection is a very valuable one and includes many species 

 not in our Museum. * * * It would be very useful to have a list 

 of these shells published. If you would get up such a list, giving exact 

 localities wherever known, it would form a useful supplement to 

 Dunker's Index Molluscorum Marts Japonici the most complete sum- 

 mary heretofore published. 



M941GO 



