157 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHAROPID/E. Part I. By 0. Hedley, F.L.S. (Plates I. and ii.) Widespread throughout Australia and Polynesia is a group of land shells which, varying greatly among its membeis, yet appears clearly distinguishable from other orders by the small size of its species, their cancellated sculpture, in which stout ribs are a prominent feature, flame painting, straight sharp peristome, which describes a convex then a concave sweep on approaching the right insertion, and a projecting semitransparent callus, which buries the sculpture of the whorl on which it encroaches. For this group I provisionally accept the title Charojnda'., assigned by Hutton, 1884 (Trans. N. Zealand Inst. xvi. p. 199), extending, however, the limits indicated by that writer. His vague diagnosis runs as follows : " Animal heliciform with an external shell ; tail with a mucous gland." No type is nominated by the author of the family, and I therefore suggest that the type of Charopidce would naturally be the genus Charopa, Albers, whose type species is C. coma, Gray. I quote from " Die Heliceen," 2nd ed. p. 87, the original definition of that genus. Charopa, Albers (1860). " Testa umbilicata, tenuis, depressa, raro conica, plicis trans-versis, elevatis, pilis rigidulis sparse saepissime obsilis, costulata ; anfractus 4-5^, ultimus antice non descendens ; apertura parum obliqua, lunato-rotundata ; peristoma simplex, marginibus conni-ventibus."
BioStor
