1885.] FROM THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 599 



The specimens described by Pfeiffer were said to have come from 

 Tanna, one of the New Hebrides islands ; but this certainly requires 

 confirmation, as so many of the localities in Cuming's collection are 

 erroneous. The figures in Sowerby's Monographs are all enlarged, 

 those in the 'Thesaurus' being fairly accurate as regards form, but 

 those in the ' Conchologia Iconica ' are altogether unlike the species. 

 The operculum of this little shell is white, concave in the middle, 

 and is broadly thickened along the outer margin. 



34. Helicina solomonensis. (Plate XXXVI. figs. 11, 11 b.) 



Shell small, globose-conical, reddish or yellowish, pale at the 

 apex. Whorls 4-4 1, the least convex above, sculptured with lines of 

 growth and fine spiral striae both on the upper and lower surfaces, 

 very faintly margined above at the suture ; last whorl rounded at 

 the periphery, obsoletely angled near the junction of the outer lip 

 and the least descending in front, so that the faint angulation is 

 visible for a short distance above the sutural line. Aperture some- 

 what semicircular and oblique, small ; peristome slightly expanded ; 

 umbilical callosity yellowish or pellucid whitish, defined towards the 

 the base of the columellar margin. Greatest width 4§ milUm., smallest 

 4 ; height 3J. 



Hab. Faro, Shortland, and Treasury Islands. 



The specimens from the last of the above islands were obtained 

 " at a height of 900 feet above the sea." 



This little species is of about the same size and form as JET. multi- 

 color, Grould, but is distinguished by the spiral sculpture. The 

 operculum is greyish, becoming rather darker at the middle. 



35. Pythia scarab^us, Linne. 



Hab. Santa Anna Island, " living on a sandy swampy soil raised a 

 few feet above the sea " ( Guppy). 



Of the five adult specimens from the above locality, which are of 

 medium size (about 30 millims. long) and normally mottled and 

 blotched, three are umbilicated and one imperforate. The variation 

 in this respect has already been referred to in my account 6f the 

 Land and Freshwater MoUusca of the ' Challenger ' Expedition 

 (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1884, pp. 261 and 268). P. insularis of Hombron 

 and Jacquinot I regard as the same as this species. 



Three specimens of the variety named P. albovaricosa by PfeiflFer 

 were also collected by Mr. Guppy " on the low tract skirting the 

 coast on the south-east side of San Christoval." Two of these 

 specimens are coloured precisely like the types, which were said to 

 have come from the island of Celebes, but the third is very remarkable, 

 being totally white. 



Three young specimens of the normal form, from Santa Anna 

 Island, are clothed with a very thin epidermis which is produced 

 into numerous parallel thin hair-like threads in the direction of the 

 line of growth. At this early stage the shells are imperforate, and 

 the columella has in consequence a somewhat different appearance. 



39* 



