I860.] Contributions to Indian Malacology. 119 



especially) procured by accident from Pegu, Ava, the Tenasserim 

 provinces, Penang, Malacca, Singapore and perhaps one or two other 

 places. The greater portion of the mountains north of the Punjab, 

 the vast tract of Nepal, the interior vallej's of Sikkim, Bhotan, 

 Assam with the mountains both north and soutli of it, Arracan, and, 

 with the few exceptions mentioned, the Malay peninsula, are totally 

 unsearched. Despite these circumstances, the list of shells descrihed 

 from the Himalayas and Burmah alone probably exceeds that from 

 all the Indian peninsula. 



But even India proper may yet yield important novelties. Perhaps 

 no part has been more carefully or more repeatedly examined than 

 the Nilgiri hills of Southern India. They are perhaps the last 

 place whence generic forms new to the country might be expected, yet 

 we have been so fortunate as to meet with such, among the smaller 

 shells as might naturally be expected, but by no means amongst those 

 least interesting. 



Amongst the genera enumerated as characterizing India north of 

 the Gauges and east of the Bay of Bengal, none perhaps is more 

 generally distributed or more abundant than the singular little genus 

 Alycceus, Gray. Another form which, however, perhaps chiefly on 

 account of its minute size, has not as yet been shewn to have an 

 equal range in these countries with Alycceus, but which also occurs 

 in Mr. Benson's list of genera confined to the northern and eastern 

 regions of India, is Diiplommatina, Benson. The discovery of species 

 of both of these genera, in a district so well examined previously as 

 the Nilgiri hills have been, must make us pause before we conclude 

 that we are in possession of data sufficient to enable us to come to 

 definite conclusions upon the distribution of Indian land shells. 



The circumstance of their discovery becomes less surprising when 

 we consider that there are several species of shells on the Nilgiris 

 closely representative of Himalayan and Burmese forms. Tims Helix 

 Cycloplax, Benson, of Sikkim and S. Oxytes, B., of the Khasi hills 

 are replaced by H. Thyreus, B. ; Ackatina tenuispira, B. of Sikkim, 

 Khasi, Burmah, &c. by A. Sliiplayi, Pfr. ; Bulimus vibex, Hutt, and 

 B. ccelebs, B. of the Western Himalaya by B, Nilagiricus, Pfr. &c. 



To return to the genera of Cycloslomacece ; there are to be found 

 on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal and in the Himalayas the 



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