The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma: Mollusca—III Land Operculates (Cyclophoridae, Truncatellidae, Assimineidae, Helicinidae)

AMONG the Indian land mollusca the family Cyclophoridae especially attracts attention by the beauty of form and variety in the shells. The range is extensive, and their study began so far back as 1849, when W. H. Benson, of the Bengal Civil Service, and Capt. T. Hutton were writing on the animal of Diplommatina. After seventy years the above families are still very imperfectly understood, so little is known of the animal which constructs the shell. I think I am correct in saying the time had not arrived for publishing a volume on these molluscs, for sufficient material had not been examined; in truth, much has yet to be collected. It would be interesting to know for this reason why Mr. Gude was selected to do it, and the work then left to all intents and purposes completely in his hands; why malacologists with knowledge of the subject were not consulted; and why the present writer, with more than forty years' connection with these land operculates, both in the field and in collections, was in complete ignorance that such a work was under compilation. It leads me to think of past workers in this field of natural history. The foremost among them was the late Dr. William Blanford, the editor and founder of “The Fauna of British India.” No one would have known better how much preliminary work there was to do, or what material to obtain; and had he lived he would have prepared the way for it, as he did for vol. 1 of the Mollusca Series (the Testacellidae and Zonitidae). It recalls the type of paper he wrote on the animals of Raphaulus, Spiraculum, and other tube-bearing Cyclostomacea so long ago as 1863 in “The Annals and Magazine of Natural History.” There is even now food for thought in this paper, while it is an indication of how the history of the land operculates should be approached, which is to be looked for in vain in the publication under notice. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma: Mollusca.—III. Land Operculates. (Cyclophoridae, Truncatellidae, Assimineidae, Helicinidae.) By G. K. Gude. Pp. xiv + 386. (London: Taylor and Francis; Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co.; Bombay: Thacker and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 35s.