OCR Text |
Show 220 MR. T. D. A. COCKERELL ON THE [Apr. 7, (4) Australian Region. New Guinea .. 2 species. Queensland.. 3 species. New Caledonia . 1 „ There are also specimens from Port Elizabeth, S. Africa, Panama, Honduras, and St. Lucia in the British Museum collection, of which I hope to write at some future timel. Vaginulince. While the Veronicellince have a ribbed jaw and quadrate marginal teeth, the Vaginulince have no jaw and the teeth all aculeate. Thus the two subfamilies differ from one another much as the Arionidce differ from the Testacellidce, so far as these particulars are concerned, but in other respects they seem so closely allied that they may be united under a single family. It would be interesting to ascertain whether the Vaginulidce are carnivorous, as from their structure they should be. Under Vaginulince are three genera:-Rathousia, Heude, with three species, from China; Vaginulus, " Stol." 2, Cochin China and the Malay Peninsula: and Atopos, Simroth, found in Amboina and Mindanao, and apparently also in New Guinea and Queensland. Perhaps these three genera will not all prove distinct, but I have not made any critical examination of them myself. Superficially, the species of Vaginulus may be known by their subcylindrical shape and broad sole, Veronicella being flatfish with a narrow sole. A species which I refer to Vaginulus is in the British Museum, from Penang ; and an Atopos (or something closely allied) from Huon Gulf, New Guinea. This last is probably the V. prismatica, T.-Can., which is, I suppose, a species of Atopos3. ARIONIDCE.-Ph ilomgcince. Consists of a single genus Limacella, Blainv. (Philomycus, Raf.), which I have treated in some detail in Ann. Mag. N . H. for Nov. 1890. The distribution of Limacella is very remarkable. It occurs in Central America and Eastern North America, but not at all west of the Rockies. It reappears in the Chino-Malay and Indian regions, the only intermediate localities being Japan and the Sandwich Is. 1 Dr. Simroth has just published a paper (see Bes. Abdr. nat. Ges. Leipzig) in which many new species are indicated ; I have altered the statistics above so as to include these. For the anatomy of many species of this genus see Semper, Eeisen im Arch. Phil. 1885. 2 Stoliczka is quoted as authority for this genus as here limited, but he did not actually propose a genus Vaginulus ; indeed he described (Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1873) a species from Penang with the characters of this genus under the head of Veronicella birmanica. Vaginulus, as here understood, was defined by W . G. Bimiey in 1879. 3 Since this was written, I have received a letter from Dr. Simroth, to whom I had sent some particulars of the Penang and Huon Gnlf specimens. H e thinks that the Penang one (which is certainly a species of Vaginulus W . G. Binney) is congeneric with his Atopos, and that the Huon Gulf one (ap' parently V. prismatica, T.-Can.) probably represents a new genus or subgenus." |