On the Australian Haliotidce. 47 



coasts of China, Japan, &c., but the greater number of 

 species, and the most remarkable, are from New Zealand 

 and the continent of New Holland, displaying all the pecu- 

 liarity of design which invariably characterize the Fauna of 

 those isolated regions." 



To the greater part of these opinions my own knowledge 

 and experience is quite opposed. So far as regards the 

 Australian and New Zealand coasts, (where, according to 

 our author, " the greater number," and " the most remark- 

 able," of the Ear-shells are found), the number of Chitons 

 is numerous and most remarkable. 



In a very limited portion of Cook's Straits I have found 

 more than a dozen sj)ecies of Chitons, some of them so 

 remarkable as to constitute types of new divisions ; and I 

 have sometimes gathered them from the very same frag- 

 ment of rock on which were young Ear-shells intermixed. 

 Again, if New Holland is as rich in Haliotidse as the writer 

 supposes, it is equally rich in Chitons, not indeed described 

 in books or systematic works, (which have doubtless been 

 our author's authority), but in nature and fact. On looking 

 over, my friend Mr. G. B. Sowerby's, jun., figures of these 

 shells, and the index he has given of their localities, I believe 

 there are not more than six or seven described as inhabiting 

 the whole of Australia, and yet I possess figures and descrip- 

 tions of more than thirty species discovered in Port Jackson 

 alone, besides thirteen others I procured or detected further 

 north of that locality, near the estuary of the Hunter Eiver. 

 This relative proportion between the Haliotidee and Chitons 

 in number, but not in species, I have likewise found to pre- 

 vail on all the coasts of New Zealand. 



In regard to our Australian and New Zealand Ear-shells 

 possessing, as it is stated, " all the peculiarity of design 

 which invariably characterizes the Fauna of those isolated 



