ON THE LAND-MOLLUSCAN GENtTS DTTEGELLA. 29l 



On the Land-Molluscan Genus Durgella, W. T. Blanford; with 

 Notes on its Anatomy and Description of a new Species. 

 By Lieut.-Colonel H. H. God win- Austen, F.E.S., F.L.S. 

 [Eead December 16, 1880.] 

 (Plates XX. & XXI.) 



The genus Durgella was founded by Mr. W. T. Blanford in 

 February 1863, in a paper published in the ' Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History' *, which was really the first attempt to classify 

 the Indian land-shells by the form of the animal; and in the 

 section Nanina the form of the mucous pore at the extremity of 

 the foot was principally relied on, together with the character of 

 the shell. It placed several species in their correct natural divi- 

 sions which were before unknown ; and the localities are authentic, 

 which renders the paper a valuable one as regards their distribution. 



Durgella included three species : — 



The type, D. levicula, Bens. Tenasserim {Theobald) ; Prome, 

 in Pegu. 



D. mucosa, W. & H. Blanf. Nilgiri Hills. 



D. seposita, Bens. Darjiling. (Animal not seen by the author.) 



The species D. levicula was described by Mr. W. H. Benson, in 

 the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' May 1859, p. 391, 

 from a single specimen (which I take to be young) found at Phie- 

 Than, in Tenasserim, by Mr. W. Theobald. Benson's shells passed, 

 some time after his death, to Mr. MacAndrew, and are now most 

 of them in the Cambridge Museum and incorporated in the Mac- 

 Andrew collection, and generally have "from Benson's collection" 

 written on the new label, with India, Bengal, or Burmah as habitat ; 

 but I regretted to find Benson's original labels, in his unmistakable 

 writing, have been destroyed, and with them all his valuable 

 record of exact locality : this fault, however, does not rest, I am 

 glad to say, on the Cambridge Museum. The original value of 

 many of the species is gone for ever ; and a good many have now 

 no locality at all. There are two specimens of D. levicula in the 

 collection from Tenasserim, one of which must be the type shell 

 referred to. I have thus been enabled to compare and identify 

 the specimens in my own collection ; and I take this opportunity 

 of thanking Mr. J. "W. Clark, of Cambridge, for his courtesy in 

 affording me every possible facility for examining this collection, 

 which contains a very large number of type forms. The figure of 



* " On Indian Species of Land-Shells belonging to the Genera Helix, Linn., 

 and Nanina, Gray " (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, 1863, vol. xi. p. 81). 



LINN. JOTTEN. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. XV. 23 



