SOME AMPHIPODA AND ISOPODA FROM BAR- 

 RINGTON TOPS (4C00 ft. alt.) N.S.W. 



By Ohas. Chilton, m.a.,d.Sc, m.b.,c.m.,ll.d.,f.l.s.,c.m.z.s., 



Professor of Biology, Canterbury College, New Zealand. 



(Communicated by C. Hedley.) 

 With Twenty-two Text-figures. 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wa'es, June 7, 1916.] 



In January, 1916, 1 received from the authorities of the 

 Australian Museum, a small collection of Amphipoda and 

 Isopoda that had been gathered a short time previously by 

 Mr. O. Hedley, on Barrington Tops near Dungog, New 

 South Wales, at an altitude of 4,600 feet above sea-level. 1 

 On examination the collection proved to consist of four 

 species, two Isopoda and two Amphipoda, there being one 

 terrestrial and one fresh water representative of each 

 group. The species are : — 

 Isopoda — Terrestrial, Cubaris helmsianus sp. no v. 



Fresh water, Phreatoicus shephardi Sayce. 

 Amphipoda — Terrestrial, Talitrus sylvaticus Haswell. 



Fresh water, Gammarus barringtonensis, 



sp. nov. 



Two of these species are new, all of them present points 



of individual interest, their geographical distribution is 



important, and a brief account of them is therefore desirable. 



1 Just before the New England Plateau dips into the trench of the 

 Hunter valley, it rises at Barrington Tops to a height of five thousand 

 feet. Here the climate proper to such an altitude nourishes a subalpine 

 fauna and flora on an island, as it were, set in a subtropical sea. So 

 inaccessible is this spot that it has hitherto escaped scientific examination. 

 Under the auspices of the West Maitland Scientific Society, an excursion 

 to it (described in the Sydney Morning Herald, 1/4/16) was arranged by 

 our member, Mr. J. W. Enright, for the Christmas holidays of 1915. A 

 botanist, a geologist, and several zoologists joined this party and accom- 

 plished useful work. The present communication, which will, it is hoped, 

 be followed by several others, was preceded by articles on the Coleoptera 

 by Messrs. Sloane and Carter, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xli., 1916, pp. 

 196-214, and a note on a Moss by W. W. Watts, op. cit., p. 385.— C.H. 



