256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to be done : in the Andftraan Islands, for instance, there is a group of 

 Macrochlami/s-like shells represented by choinix : we know from dried- 

 up animals that sbell-lobes are present, but we have yet to learn to 

 what section of the above genus they belong. Hemiplecta Saughtoni 

 is another large species concerning which we know nothing for 

 certain. In Southern India there is M. ? ampulla, also the large species 

 11. ? hasileus, of which the same may be said. When we come to the 

 smaller fry, they are too numerous to mention, and we do not know 

 what further research may show. No better example of this can 

 be quoted than the discoveiy by Mr. Collett in Ceylon of a form 

 belonging to the Endodontidse, for which I founded the genus 

 Philalanha,'^ and I may here put on record that a very closely allied 

 species was lately sent me by Mr. Stanley Flower from the Eatu 

 Caves, near Selangor in the Malay Peninsula. The examination of this 

 animal so interested Mr. Pilsbry that in a letter he writes: "This 

 is to me the most interesting addition made for years to the fauna 

 of Ceylon and India. I believe, however, there can be no doubt of 

 the soundness of your conclusions as to the affinities of the little 

 fellow." I quote this because, as we are all so liable at times to 

 come to wrong conclusions, it is confirmatory (of course, subject 

 to the correctness of my drawings and description) of the position 

 of this mollusc. There are several other small shells from Ceylon 

 of equal interest, such as Pupa tniccijla, which I cannot believe is 

 a Pupa at all. 



The outcome of what I have said and feel is this : a great deal 

 more has to be done, and I hope this Society will be the means of 

 helping to do it. It will never be completed as it should be, until 

 some malacologist goes out to work in the country, and on fresh 

 material. There should be an examination in the typical habitats of 

 species which Benson and others described long ago. At the same 

 time other species would be made known, for which only a trained 

 naturalist knows how and where to look. 



Pilsbry, in " The Phylogeny of the Arionidse," says : "As a whole, 

 the Arionidae not only do not possess the characters of primitive 

 shell-less forms, ' Unbeschaligkeit,' but the series of recent genera 

 unmistakably indicates their descent from a group with well-developed 

 spiral shell." ^ How much more distinctly is similar evolution exem- 

 plified in this section of the Indian Zonitidse. Between Macrochlamys 

 and Girasia forms are to be found wherein the chief successive 

 differences consist in a less developed shell and greater developed 

 shell-lobes. In this series anatomical details at last become more of 

 specific than of generic account, and it is most instructive to follow, as 

 the original spiral visceral mass becomes a simple bag, the gradual 

 concentration backwards under the shell-lobes of the branchial cavity, 

 with the heart and kidney in the anterior part, while the liver lobes, 

 intestine, albumen gland, hermaphrodite duct, and ovotestes follow on 

 the posterior side, and finally the complete isolation in a cavity of its 

 own, of a quite rudimentary shell, as in 6. rubra. This is sufficient 



1 Ante, p. 11. 2 Ante, p. 99. 



