Catalogue of type specimens of molluscs in the collection of The Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester, UK

Th is paper presents the fi rst published listing of the holdings of type specimens of mollusc in Th e Manchester Museum (University of Manchester, UK), the fourth largest mollusc collection in Britain. Type material relating to 480 taxa, including holotypes, paratypes and syntypes, are included in the present catalogue, mainly coming from the collections of A Abercrombie (India), RD Darbishire, Prof. AC Haddon (Torres Straits), Rev. J Hadfi eld (Lifu, Loyalty Islands), LJ Shackleford (especially Marginella), GC Spence (especially African land snails and Urocoptis and many specimens from M Connolly and HB Preston), FW Townsend (Persian Gulf ), syntype material from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-1904) and that received from the Smithsonian Institution in 1973 in exchange. Th ere is undoubtedly more type material within the collection which is not identifi ed as such as yet.


Introduction
Th e Manchester Museum holds what is probably the fourth largest mollusc collection in Britain, with 166,000 lots (a previous count reported 80,000 lots and 400,000 specimens, see Hancock and Morgan 1980).Th is collection contains many type specimens, including holotypes, paratypes and syntypes.Specimens such as these are of fundamental importance to the study of taxonomy, systematics and biodiversity and are an irreplaceable resource.No catalogue of the type specimens contained within these collections has hitherto been available to researchers and it is hoped that the present catalogue will serve to encourage researchers to make increased use of the Museum's extensive and important collections.Th e collections have been the subject of various databasing projects and are searchable using the museum's website (www.museum. manchester.ac.uk).
Type material is mainly found in the collections of A Abercrombie (India), RD Darbishire, Prof. AC Haddon (Torres Straits), Rev. J Hadfi eld (Lifu, Loyalty Islands), LJ Shackleford (especially Marginella), GC Spence (especially African land snails and Urocoptis and many specimens from M Connolly and HB Preston, see Jackson 1946), FW Townsend (Persian Gulf ), syntype material from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902)(1903)(1904) and that received from the Smithsonian Institution in 1973 in exchange.Material from the collections of A Abercrombie, Prof. AC Haddon, Rev. J Hadfi eld, LJ Shackleford, FW Townsend and the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition was described by JC Melvill who had close connections with Th e Manchester Museum; many species were described together with R Standen of the museum.
Th e bulk of JC Melvill's collection is housed in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff and there is also type material in the Natural History Museum, London.Th e main collections from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition described by Melvill are in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh.Types from M Connolly's collection are also to be found in the Natural History Museum, London and the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff .Types from HB Preston's collection are widespread as he dealt in specimens; many are found in other British, European and American museums.Th e Wollaston collection, described by RT Lowe, is distributed between the Natural History Museum (London), National Museum of Wales (Cardiff ), Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Cambridge University Museum of Zoology.Type material from American authors including WH Dall, HA Pilsbry and P Bartsch, is mainly to be found in the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC), American Museum of Natural History (New York) and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
Th e collection grew around that of the Manchester Society for the Promotion of Natural History, which acquired one of William Swainson's shell collections in 1825 and which also included the collection of Captain Th omas Brown (see Dance 1966Dance , 1986)).Type specimens relating to these two collectors have not been located to date.It is very likely that there is additional type material in the collections which remains to be identifi ed as such.

Methods and presentation
Only primary types, ie.holotypes, paratypes and syntpes, are included in this catalogue.Topotypes are not listed although there are many of these in the collections, particularly in those of EL Layard, GC Spence and LW Stratton.No attempt has been made to designate lectotypes or paralectotypes as this is outwith the scope of the present catalogue; similarly, any designations which have inadvertently been made by me should not be regarded as proper designations.Lectotypes may already have been designated for some names (e.g. by Schouteden 1936 from some of HB Preston's names).In publications where a holotype or 'type' was not designated, names are recorded as syntypes.Specimens considered to have formed part of the type series (i.e.available to the author at the time of description) are listed as syntypes.Where an author clearly indicated an individual shell as a 'type' in the original description, such as by providing a museum accession number, this is taken to indicate the author's intention to select a 'holotype'.Where measurements alone are given, this is not taken as suffi cient evidence to indicate a 'holotype' as, in many cases, although measurements from a single specimen are given, it is clear from the description that the author was referring to a number of specimens.Other specimens from the localities listed in descriptions and known or considered to have been in the possession of the author at the time have been referred to as 'paratypes' or 'possible paratypes'.All 'possible paratypes' are therefore at least topotypes.Th e locality from which the author's selected 'type' came is indicated where this is known.Where it is clear that only a single specimen was being described, the specimen has been referred to as a 'holotype' with the caveat, 'the only specimen described' in brackets.All original references were checked for the preparation of the present catalogue; references were traced using the Zoological Record, Boss et al. 1968, Adam 1971, Ruhoff 1973and Trew 1987.Th e format of the catalogue largely follows that of Trew (1992), which was invaluable to the preparation of this work.
Each entry in the catalogue consists of the name as fi rst published, arranged in alphabetical order of the lowest taxonomic ranking of the scientifi c name (species or subspecies).Th e reference to the fi rst page of the original description, and references to fi gures (where there are any) are given.Where the name appeared in the paper before the description, both page references are given.Full bibliographic references are given at the end of the catalogue.Stated localities are exactly as they appear in original publications; additional locality information taken from specimen labels is provided in square brackets.Th e form of type, together with Th e Manchester Museum accession number, is provided, and the collection from which the specimens came is given in parentheses.Specimens are dry shells apart from a small number of eggs cited in descriptions and which are recorded as such.
kinds.I am especially grateful to D Logunov and LM Cook (Th e Manchester Museum) for their constant encouragement with this project.I am similarly grateful to two reviewers for their constructive comments.