THE CHIEF COLKOPTEltOUS FAUNAE. 



L>1 



and elsewhere. I have therefore combined these, and shall ven- 

 ture to add similar notes as to the genera and a few of the species 

 from the British-Museum collection to those which I have given 

 of the marine species. "With one exception, they are all Euro- 

 pean-looking Helices, Bulimi, Pupa?, Succineae, and similar forms ; 

 the exception is a large semifossil Bulimus (B. auris-vulpina, 

 Beeve) which looks recent, but of which the animal has never 

 been found ; the nearest affinities of this species have been 

 thought by some to be with Polynesia. The affinities of the 

 other species have been thought by conchologists, I believe, to 

 lean most to Chili ; but this I apprehend to have arisen rather 

 from a reluctance to look for this relationship in our own land. 

 Divested of prejudice, it is difficult to conceive anything more close 

 in appearance to the British species without being actually iden- 

 tical than they are, and any greater resemblance to the Chilian 

 species I believe to be impossible ; and if it did exist, it could not 

 go for much, for the land-shells of Chili are microtypal too, 

 many of the Helices and Bulimi being exceeding like those of 

 Europe ; and we all know that two things which are each equal to 

 a third are equal to each other. Others have sought to ac- 

 count for this close resemblance to our own species by supposing 

 them to be modifications of species brought in the earth at the 

 roots of plants from Britain. The occurrence, however, of so 

 many other species in other classes like our European species 

 seems fatal to this view. 



Of other sea animals, I have to mention two species of an An- 

 nelid (Ditnvpa), also of a northern type. 



There are four Crustaceans mentioned by Governor Beatson 

 — Shrimps, Crawfish, Stumps, and Long-legs — which by their 

 names and the character ascribed to them by Governor Beatson, 

 viz. that they resemble our lobsters in taste and colour, suggest 

 our northern species ; but in ignorance of what they really are, 

 we must pass them by. 



The Eev. O. P. Cambridge has lately reported on a small col- 

 lection of spiders made by Mr. T. J. Melliss, and described the 

 new species in the Zoological Society's 1 Proceedings ;' and he 

 says that so far as so small a number of species (only twenty- 

 two), of which nine were new, may justify a general remark upon 

 the character of the Araneidea of St. Helena, it appears to bear a 

 thoroughly European stamp, one alone belonging to any genus 

 not indigenous to Europe. Eour, if not five of them have been 



