The non-marine Molluscs of Surinam

Whilst the Mollusc-fauna of the Dutch colonies in the eastern hemisphere has been studied since very remote times, and its literature represents a considerable pile of very valuable papers, written by well-known conchologists and investigators of many parts of the world, the Dutch West-Indies, and especially Dutch Guyana or Surinam, are very little known in regard to their molluscs. As far as I know the only existing list of non-marine molluscs of Surinam is that given by the late Prof. Ed. von Martens in his „Binnenmollusken Venezuela’s”. That list excepted, it is only by chance, that one finds the habitat „Surinam” in a malacological paper: either in a note on newly acquired collections of shells, or in monographs of some families, or in books of travels. The few references about molluscs from Surinam I happened to find in literature, are to be found at the end of this paper. I hope my fellow-conchologists will kindly inform me when any note on molluscs, collected in Surinam, is coming to their notice. I should not wonder if, besides the few mentioned in literature, still more specimens from Surinam are existing in some museum-collections. Although many expeditions ¹) have been sent from our country to various parts of our South-American colony, they all had other aims than collecting animals. Only by chance some molluscs were brought home and presented to the Leyden Museum. Moreover this museum now and then had the good luck of receiving some shells from Surinam, from travellers in that country. Recently Jhr. W. C. van Heurn, to whose infatigable ardour in collecting animals our museum is owing already many molluscs of the Dutch fauna, passed some months in Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam, and brought home from there large zoological collections, among them many molluscs. It was this collection that induced me to occupy myself with the non-marine molluscs of Surinam, and to look after the specimens from that colony, represented in the collection of the Leyden Museum. In doing so, I soon was struck by the fact that Mr. van Heurn’s collection, obtained chiefly in the neighbourhood of Paramaribo, and only during a rather short period, chiefly spent in collecting higher animals, was containing not only a great deal of the species already recorded from Surinam, but also many species not yet recorded from there, and moreover some species new to science.