﻿JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



Part II.— PHYSICAL SCIENCE, &e. 

 No. III.— 1874. 



DESCRTPTIOlSrS OP NINE SPECIES OF AlTC^IN^ FEOM AsSAM AND THE 



Naga Hills. — By Major H. H. Godwin-Austen, F. B. G. S. F. 



Z. S., (^c, Deputy Superintendent Topographical Survey of India. 



(With Plate III). 



(Read August 6tli, 1874). 



Anotlier season of research in the N. E. frontier has added laro-ely 

 to its terrestrial molluscan fauna, and I was particularly fortunate amono- 

 the smaller forms of the Cyclostomacea. The Alyccei particularly seem 

 to be inexhaustible ; the different species are very local but very per- 

 sistent in character over comparatively small areas, and as they are generally 

 abundant where they occur, the idea that they are accidental varieties is not 

 supported. Very few have a wide vertical distribution and several common 

 forms of the Khasi Hills, at a distance of 120 miles east, in the Naga 

 country, are absent or become very rare indeed. The whole section is a most 

 interesting one and illustrates admirably the many changes that nature will 

 ring on any particular form of life, when confined to particular habitats 

 suited for their development and again subjected to all the slow alternations 

 in climate, soil, &c. that time produces. 



I give at the end of the paper a few additional notes as to the range of 

 some species of the group previously described and again met Avith. Several 

 species oi Alyccei when taken in a fresh state are found covered with a coating 

 of earthy matter rendering them very indistinct and difficult to find, especially 

 as they are to be generally found below the surface and under the dead 

 leaves and decaying bark and sticks that cover the ground so thickly in old 

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