30 



THE MARINE MOLLUSCA OF MADRAS AND THE 

 IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



By J. COSMO MELVILL and R. STANDEN. 



(Read before the Society, Oct. 13th, 1897.) 



A few years ago Professor J. R. Henderson, of the Christian College, 

 Madras, handed over the mollusca obtained during two or three 

 dredging expeditions, in the neighbourhood of that city, to the Man- 

 chester Museum for investigation. 



Want of time and pressure of other matters have, till now, prevented 

 our accomplishing this, but we now have the pleasure of detailing the 

 results of our examination of this very interesting collection. 



As might be expected, the fauna is typically Indian, a few species 

 showing considerable extension of range southwards, which have 

 been till now mainly considered inhabitants of the North Indian 

 Ocean or the Arabian Sea. 



So far as we can make out, but few collections of marine shells from 

 Madras have been formed, still fewer catalogued. That published of 

 the contents of the Madras Museum embraces specimens from other 

 localities as well, so that we believe the present is the first endeavour 

 to collate such a list. 



There is a large assemblage of dredged material in the British 

 Museum, mainly collected by Mr. Edgar Thurston, Superintendent of 

 the Madras Museum, but this has not yet been investigated. 



These facts render the accompanying enumeration of greater in- 

 terest than a mere list of names usually possesses. 



We have thought it worth while i;o add to each species a note re- 

 garding its geographical distribution, and, we may remark, it is 

 astonishing to find how very widely distributed many species are, e.g., 

 Strombus floridus, S. gibberulus, Nerita polita, etc. The majority of 

 the mollusca named come from Madras and its immediately neigh- 

 bouring shores, but a few were dredged in the Pamban Passage, between 

 Port Lome, S.E. India, and Rameswaram Island, N.W. Ceylon. 



We take this opportunity of expressing our acknowledgements to 

 Prof. Henderson for the opportunity of examining such rich and well- 

 collected material, and we are also much indebted to Mr. Edgar A. 

 Smith, F.Z.S., for having personally aided us in the comparison and 

 differentiation of some obscure species ; and, whilst we have left, as 

 still doubtful, several of these, we have ventured to describe seven 

 as new in the present paper. 



The total number now catalogued comes just short of 400 species, 

 and is therefore slightly in excess of those enumerated, three years 

 ago, as natives of Bombay by Mr. Alexander Abercrombie and one of 



