536 



THE AMERICAS XATCRALIST [Vol. XLIII 



is a classic source for information, relating, however, to 

 South America as a whole rather than to the Peruvian 

 Province. 



Collections made by Gay and others, worked up in 

 his monographic Historia de Chile, by Hupe, form the 

 third large and well-illustrated contribution to the mala- 

 cology of the province, chiefly restricted of course to the 

 southern or Chilean portion. 



The last important contributor to a knowledge of this 

 fauna in these earlier days was the German naturalist 

 Philippi, who added numerous species and useful illus- 

 trations in the Zeitschrift fur Malakozodlogie, his " Ab- 

 bildungen," and his " Atacama Reise." 



Of course many minor contributors to the work, such as 

 Lesson, Jonas, etc., might be mentioned, but I propose in 

 this hasty sketch to touch only on the most important. 

 The list of Tschudi's collection, ostensibly from Peru, as 

 described by Troschel unfortunately contains numerous 

 exotic Indo Pacific and Panamic species, so that its au- 

 thority is seriously impaired. More recently the re- 

 searches of Ludwig Plate, the Princess of Bavaria and 

 others, have added essentially to our knowledge. 



In considering the distribution of species along the roast 

 of the province it should not be forgotten that the collec- 

 tions have not been made with equal thoroughness on 

 different parts of the coast. The ports of Guayaquil, 

 Paita, Callao and Valparaiso have naturally been much 

 more thoroughly explored than any of the rest, and the 

 careful collecting which would obtain the smaller species 

 is not recorded to have been done at all, anywhere. 



Dredging also is practicable with difficulty, except in 

 the sheltered harbors which occur so rarely on this coast, 

 or by the aid of a large steamer which could be had only 

 under Government auspices on account of the great ex- 

 pense involved. 



The small lots of material derived from the mud which 

 came up on the anchor of the Albatross at one or two 

 points, show that proper exploration will certainly reveal 



