MOLLUSCA FROM ALPINE ZONE OF MOUNT KOSCIUSKO — IIEDLEY. 101 
NOTES on MOLLUSCA from tiie ALPINE ZONE of 
MOUNT KOSCIUSKO. 
By C. Hedley, F.L.S. 
(Concliologist to the Australian Museum). 
[Plate XXIII.] 
The Alpine fauna and flora have elsewhere yielded such 
interesting results that it is with pleasurable anticipations a 
student turns to the consideration of this chapter in Australian 
Biology. The restricted devclopement of high land here holds 
out, however, no promise of a rich harvest. In Australia the 
alpine zone is almost limited to the plateau of Mount Kosciusko, 
an elevation so insignificant (7,25G ft.) that on other continents it 
would rather be termed a hill than a mountain 
Two observers have contributed, especially to our knowledge 
of the physical features of this district. In January, 1885, Dr. 
It. von Lendenfeld made a brief reconnaissance and under the 
titles of “ Meteorology of Mount Kosciusko ” and “ The Glacial 
Period in Australia ” communicated some of his experiences of it 
to the Linnean Society of New South Wales. A more detailed 
account of his travels appeared as a Parliamentary Paper, 
Sydney, 1885, and in Petermann’s Mittheil ungen, 1887. 
Later, several visits, the first under the auspices of this Institu- 
tion, were paid by Mr. Richard Helms. In a “Report of a 
Collecting Trip to Mount Kosciusko,”* * * § in an essay “ On the 
recently observed evidences of an extensive Glacier Action at 
Mount Kosciusko Plateau,” f and in a paper now being published 
by the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, N.S. W. Branch, 
he has recorded observations on the geology and natural history of 
the district. Considerable zoological collections were formed by 
Mr. Helms, which have not yet been exhaustively investigated. 
“An isopod of a very old and greatly generalised type,”{ he 
procured at the 5,700 level, was described by Dr. C. Chilton § as 
Phreatoicus australis ; a species since collected at the 4000 ft. 
level on Mount Wellington in Tasmania and which completes a 
genus of two other species from South New Zealand. This 
distribution supporting that of Geonemertes australiensis, Dendy,|| 
* Eec. Austr. Mas. i., pp. 11-10. 
f Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (2) viii., pp. 349-364. 
% Thomson, Trans. Linn. Soc., Zool. (2) vi., p. 301. 
§ Eec. Austr. Mus. i., pp. 149-171. 
|| Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (2) x., p. 372. 
