62 MR. GEOFFREY NEVILL ON THE (Jan. 28, 
plants, amongst the roots &c. of which they could easily have been 
brought. I have always noticed that the species having the sup- 
posed widest ranges are principally found close to the coast, or near 
some town, where, generally, the chief part of the vegetation has 
been introduced. In these places one rarely finds a species which 
can confidently be pronounced to be indigenous, about the only 
exception that I have met with being Gibbus mauritianus, which 
abounds everywhere in the sugar plantations near Port Louis. The 
commonest shell in the Mascarene Islands, as well as at Mahé and 
Praslin, is Helix similaris, which I believe has been thus introduced 
into all of them, either from India or Ceylon. At the great abun- 
dance of most of these species one cannot be surprised when one 
considers the vast numbers now to be found of Achatina panthera 
at Mauritius, and Achatina fulica at Calcutta, both of which have 
been introduced within the memory of many of the present inha- 
bitants of those places. The others, of course, on account of their 
small size, have not been noticed, and consequently their introduc- 
tion cannot be so easily traced. 
The following are species which I believe, from the localities in 
which I found them, to have been introduced into the Seychelles :— 
Helix similaris, Ennea bicolor, Subulina clavulus, Carychium mauri- 
tianum, Acicula mauritiana, Succinea striata, and Achatina fulica. 
I should draw a very different deduction from the apparent affi- 
nities of the Seychelles Pulmonata to that which my friend and 
companion Mr. E. Newton, in his admirable paper in ‘The Ibis’ of 
1867, arrived at from his careful study of the ornithology of these 
islands, where he states, “As regards the Ornis of the Seychelles, 
its Malagash tendency is evident.’? Now the land-shells seem to 
me to have far more affinity with the Indian fauna than with the 
Malagash or African. Perhaps it would be more correct to say 
that the Seychelles fauna forms an intermediate and connecting 
link between the two, rather approximating to the former than to 
the latter. 
Five genera are common to the Indian region which are not found 
in the Malagash, viz. Streptaxis, Cyathopoma, Onchidium, Helicina, 
and Paludomus, the reverse being the case with only two, Tropi- 
dophora and Gibbus. ‘The only other species known of Stylodonta, 
as restricted, is from the Philippines (S. cepotdes, Lea). The spe- 
cies of Discus and Conulus are also common Indian forms. 
The only land-shells I can find recorded from the Seychelles 
which I did not myself meet with, are Helix militaris, Ptr., pro- 
bably a variety of Stylodonta unidentata, and Bulimus ornatus, Duf., 
probably the species of which I have seen two specimens in the fine 
local collection of Mr. Caldwell, of Mauritius; and if the same, it is 
a very handsome distinct species of the section Leptomerus, and 
must be extremely rare. 
1, Hevrx (Dorcasta) srmivaris, Fér, 
From Mahé and Praslin, where it abounds, but always near cul- 
tivated land, and never at any considerable height. The shells are 
