4‘) 
a 
ise) 
Contributions to Indian Malacology. [No. 1, 
This species is of about the same size as Sp. hispidum, Pearson, 
which it closely resembles in many particulars, though differing in 
several essential characters. Of these perhaps the most remarkable is 
the forward direction of the sutural tube, which, in all the previously 
described species of Spiraculum (even if the Moulmein Opisthoporus 
Fordoni, Bens. be included), is retroverted. In several forms of Opzs- 
thoporus, however, the spiracle projects forward, as in the present 
species. The wing of Sp. Beddomet is much more distinct, higher 
and more pterocycloid than that of Sp. hispidum ; the inner peristome, 
(which is deficient in the last named species), is angularly sinuate 
beneath the wing, but there is no approach to the deep sub-circular 
opening of the Indian species of Pterocyclos. All the specimens pro- 
cured by Captain Beddome were dead and weathered, and had lost 
their epidermis, but the traces which remained, shewed no approach 
to the hispidity from which the Khasi hill shell derives its name. 
The operculum has even more resemblance to that of Pterocyclos 
tenuilabiatus, Metcalfe, than has that of Sp. hispidum. 
This is the first discovery in the peninsula of India of a species of 
Spiraculum, that genus having hitherto only been met with to the 
east of the Bay of Bengal, in Assam and Burmah, while the sub- 
generic form Opisthoporws occurs in the Malay countries and Borneo, 
In a country like India, which intervenes between two great zoologi- 
cal provinces, the Malayan, and the Africano- Asiatic, such exception- 
al occurrences are natural, and instances are known not merely of out- 
lying species, but of genera, such as Cataulus and Cyclotopsis, peculiar 
to the Indian peninsula or to Ceylon, though belonging to Malayan or 
African families. The presence of a Spvraculwm on the eastern coast 
of India, is a parallel case to the existence of Otopoma Hinduorum, 
W. Blanf. in Hattiwar. It should also be noted that the discovery of 
specimens of the two Burmese helices, H. Castra, Bens. and H. levi- 
cula, Bens., on the hills of Orissa, shews that some few Burmese 
species even have extended their range down the western side of the 
Bay of Bengal. 
2. Nanina (ARIOPHANTA) INTUMESCENS, N. 5. 
Shell sinistrorse, narrowly and sub-obtectly umbilicated, globose, 
thin, finely, subplicately, transversely striated with obsolete decussating 
