Chap. XI.] IMPERFECT CLASSIFICATION OF SHELLS. 387 



rich in the marine treasures of the island have been 

 filled as much by purchase as by personal exertion, there 

 is an absence of the requisite confidence that all pro- 

 fessing to be Singhalese have been actually captured in 

 the island and its waters. 



The cabinets arranged by the native dealers, though 

 professing to contain the productions of Ceylon, include 

 shells which have been obtained from other islands in 

 the Indian seas ; and the information contained in books, 

 probably from these very circumstances, is either obscure 

 or deceptive. The old writers content themselves with 

 assigning to any particular shell the too-comprehensive 

 habitat of " the Indian Ocean," and seldom discriminate 

 between a specimen from Ceylon and one from the 

 Eastern Archipelago or Hindustan. In a very few in- 

 stances, Ceylon has been indicated with precision as the 

 habitat of particular shells, but even here the views 

 of specific essentials adopted by modern conchologists, 

 and the subdivisions established in consequence, leave 

 us in doubt for which of the described forms the col- 

 lective locality should be retained. 



Valuable notices of Ceylon shells are to be found in 

 detached papers, in periodicals, and in the scientific 

 surveys of exploring voyages. The authentic facts em- 

 bodied in the monographs of Eeeve, Kuster, Sowerby, 

 and Kiener, have greatly enlarged our knowledge of the 

 marine testacea ; and the land and fresh-water mollusca 

 have been similarly illustrated by the contributions of 

 Benson and Layabd to the Annals of Natural History. 



The dredge has been used, but only in a few insulated 

 spots along the coasts of Ceylon ; European explorers 

 have been rare ; and the natives, anxious only to secure 

 the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected 



c c 2 



