32 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 Opis- 

 thoporus, however, the spiracle projects forward, as in the present 

 species. The wing of Sp. Beddomei 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 Opisthoporus 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 Cataidus and Cyclotopsis, peculiar 

 to the Indian peninsula or to Ceylon, though belonging to Malayan or 

 African families. The presence of a Spiraculum 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 (Ariopiianta) intumescens, n. s. 



Shell sinistrorse, narrowly and sub-obtectly umbilicated, globose, 

 thin, finely, subplicately, transversely striated with obsolete decussating 



