244 pkocei:dings of the malacological society. 



its recent mollusca, as the many papers published at this period 

 testify. 



It was my good fortune to become associated with several of 

 these naturalists, whom I may call fellow surveyors, and to form 

 many lifelong friendships. The association particularly with Henry 

 r. and W. T. Blanford, Ferdinand Stoliczka, and Geoffrey I^evill, 

 I can well say has brightened my life, and led to a more profitable 

 use of many hours of that life. It gave a stimulus to research when 

 in the field, and enlivened days of solitude when extending the 

 survey of India into the then unknown districts of its Eastern 

 Frontier. 



I feel now another pleasure in the satisfaction that I was able, 

 in my turn, to import new interests into the lives of others, my 

 assistants on the Eastern Frontier Survey, that I know rendered 

 their work more pleasurable, and made it something more than the 

 daily use of the theodolite and plane table. Among these I may 

 mention M. T. Ogle, W. Chennell, both of whom eventually died 

 from the exposure and hard Avork they underwent, W. Robert 

 Belletty, Captain Badgley, and last, and my latest contributor in 

 Burma, Colonel E. "Woodthorpe, R.E, the news of whose sad death 

 in Calcutta has only reached me since I began to write this address. 

 As collectors in Ornithology, Entomology, and particularly in 

 Conchology, these assistants greatly distinguished themselves. 



On being transferred from Kashmir and the N.W. Himalayas to 

 the Eastern Frontier, I soon learned what a veritable mine of wealth 

 in land-shells this part of India presented. I shall not readily 

 forget my first arrival in 1865, at the base of the Khasi range at 

 Teria Ghat, with its great profusion of animal and plant life, amid 

 scenery so well described by Sir Joseph Hooker in his "Himalayan 

 Journals." Every condition suited to molluscan life is there extant. 

 A humid atmosphere, limestone rocks, or rich vegetable mould, 

 a shady forest, with a luxuriant growth of mosses, ferns, bamboos, 

 and palms. Species of many genera were there seen by me for 

 the first time, and in abundance — the large, finely marked Cyelophorus^ 

 the hairy Spiraculum, the glassy Pupina, curiously formed Alycceus, 

 delicate Diplommatina, and minute pink Georissa, with many an 

 interesting form of Helix. It is not surprising that in such a field 

 I continued to collect, and since that time it has been my endeavour 

 to extract something useful out of the materials I got together, 

 and the opportunities for observation then afforded to me. The 

 result is my position here this evening, for the honour of which my 

 thanks are due to you. I can assure you that I often feel I did 

 not make all the use of the opportunities that presented themselves. 

 I wish I possessed the magician's power to transfer myself to many 

 similar, even richer spots, I can recall, and in the capacity of guide 

 see some of the younger working members of this Society gathering 

 in what would there await them, and I feel sure many would not 

 object to be my fellow-travellers on such an expedition. 



I must return to Teria Ghat : it teaches us something, viz., that the 

 molluscan fauna, even in what may be called a well explored part of 



