Notes on neozelanic deepwater marine Mollusca
Abstract
Captain C. W. Ostenfeld, of the U.S.S. "Kalingo", regularly visiting the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, has brought to this Museum many interesting objects of natural history. The marine Mollusca are of value, as so little comparatively is known from that locality. However, when he observed that trawling was being carried out, twelve miles off Greymouth, on a bank of shallow depth (about 18 fathoms), the importance of the Mollusca from such a location was impressed upon him. Captain Ostenfeld has secured specimens, and it is with great gratitude that these notes are offered, as comparison may later be more completely made, with better material, with the known faunula of the East Australian Continental Shelf. Trawling has been carried on spasmodically for some forty years in the latter locality, regularly more recently, but still there is much to learn about the Mollusca. The trawling crew members are too busy commercially with fish to pay much attention to Mollusca, and therefore only the very prominent shells are commonly secured. A few trawling captains, such as Smith, Howell, and Moller, have collected smaller shells with very gratifying results. Etc.
