84 

 THE LAND SHELLS OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 



By Rev. Geo. W. Taylor. 



Very little attention seems to have been given by concbologists to- 

 the land and fresh water shells of the extreme western portion of the- 

 Dominion. Many vexy full lists of eastern Canadian shells, and others 

 more or less complete, of the mollusca of the prairie provinces, have 

 been published ; but, so far as I know, only one person (Mr. J. K. 

 Lord) has attempted to enumerate the land shells of our Pacific coast, 

 and his list, published in "The Naturalist in Vancouver Island," 1866y 

 is very incomplete, containing the names of seven species only. 



My own collecting in Vancouver Island, although it has extended 

 over a period of seven years, has not been by any means exhaustive. In 

 fact I have only examined four localities, and these comparatively near 

 together, and all on the east coast of the island : — 



L Victoria, at the south-eastern extremity of the island ; 



2. Saanich, twenty miles north of Victoria ; 



3. Salt Spring Island, a small island about a mile from the coast 

 of Vancouver Island and a little to the north of Saanich'; 



4. Comox, a settlement about 140 miles north of Victoria, but 

 also on the east coast of Vancouver Island. 



In these four localities, however, I have succeeded in finding thirty 

 species of terrestrial mollusca, which form the subject of the present 

 paper, and twenty-six species of fresh water shells, which I propose to 

 envxmerate in a subsequent contribution to this journal. 



The list of Vancouver Island land shells that here follows contains 

 the names of thirty-two species ; thirty of these, as above stated, have 

 been taken by myself. Of the other two, one, Onchidella Garpenteri, 

 W.O.B., is added on the authority of Dr. W. G. Binney, and might 

 probably have been found by me had my search been more thorough. 

 The other, Arionta Dupetithouarsi, is recorded from Vancouver Island 

 by J. K. Lord, but my own impression is that the shell was collected 

 in California and accidentally mixed with the Vancouver collection, as 

 no trace of this species has been discovered on the island by anyone 



