Chapter VII 

 MOLLUSCA 



Class GASTROPODA 



Order PECTINIBRANCHIA 



(Family MuRiciD^, see Appendix B, p. 558.) 



Family Volutid^ 



Ericusa sowerhyi, Kiener 



An example of this Australian mollusc was picked up in Evans' 

 Bay, Wellington, by Miss M. K. Mestayer some years ago. She 

 suggests that "it may have come to New Zealand adhering to the 

 bottom of some ship, and may possibly have been knocked off by 

 the vessel being put on the Patent Slip." I have not found or heard 

 of any other examples being found in New Zealand waters, but there 

 s no doubt that, from time to time, marine organisms are so intro- 

 duced. 



Family Conid^e 



Conns marmoreus, Linn. 



Early in 1917 the lighthouse-keeper at Farewell Spit picked up 

 a living specimen of this species, which he gave to Captain Bollons 

 of the S.S. 'Hinemoa.' 



Miss Mestayer says of this genus : 



In his Catalogue of the Marine Mollusca, 1873, p. 23, the late Captain 

 F. W. Hutton recorded two species of Conus as belonging to New Zealand, 

 Conus zealandicus sp. nov. and Conns distans Hwass, N.Z. (Cumming). 

 The type of Conus zealandicus is in the Dominion Museum. 



This species was founded upon a single specimen from the Bay of 

 Islands. It has since been identified as Conus anemone, Lamarck, 

 from Australia, by Suter, while in Tryon and Pilsbury's Manual of 

 Conchology it is placed as a synonym of Conns aplustre. Reeve. In 

 1882 Mr Justice Gillies stated that he had a single specimen of 

 C. aplustre from the Bay of Islands, but suggests that this and other 

 shells picked up in the same locality were perhaps dropped from some 

 South Sea whaler. 



Order PULMONATA 



With one exception all the mollusca introduced into New Zealand 

 belong to the Pulmonates, known popularly as slugs and snails. With 



