234 ZOOLOGY. [Pabt II. 



to be Singhalese have been actually captured in the island 

 and its waters. 



The cabinets arranged by the native dealers, though 

 professing to contain the productions of Ceylon, include 

 shells which liave been obtained fi'om other islands in 

 the Indian seas ; and books, probably from these very 

 facts, are either obscure or deceptive. The old writers 

 content themselves Avith assigning to any particular 

 shell the too-comprehensive habitat of " the Indian 

 Ocean," and seldom discriminate between a specimen 

 from Ceylon and one from the Eastern Archipelago or 

 Hindustan. In a very few instances, Ceylon has been 

 indicated with precision as the habitat of particular 

 shells, but even here the views of specific essentials 

 adopted by modern conchologists, and the subdivisions 

 estabhshed in consequence, leave us in doubt for which 

 of the described forms the collective locahty should be 

 retained. 



Valuable notices of Ceylon shells are to be found in de- 

 tached papers, in periodicals, and in the scientific surveys 

 of exploring voyages. The authentic facts embodied in 

 the monographs of Eeeve, Kuster, Sowerby, and Kienn, 

 have greatly enlarged the knowledge of the marine 

 testacea ; and the land and fresh-water moUusca have 

 been similarly illustrated by the contributions of Benson 

 and Layard in the Annals of Natural History. 



The dredge has been used but only in a few insulated 

 spots along the coasts of Ceylon ; European explorers 

 have been rare ; and the natives, anxious only to secm^e 

 the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected 

 the less attractive ones of the land and the lakes. Hence 

 Mr. Hanley finds it necessary to premise that the hst 

 appended, although the result of infinite labour and re- 

 search, is less satisfactory than could have been mshed. 

 " It is offered," he says, " with diffidence, not pretending 

 to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the island, 

 but rather as a form, which the zeal of other collectors 

 may hereafter elaborate and fill up." 



