This very handsomely produced book is a welcome addition to books on shells of specific areas. Its contents, after publication details, are a list of contents, a preface, a foreword by R. Tucker-Abbott, three pages on taxonomy, a map of the Sultanate of Oman, a page on 'Geological History Shaping Molluscan Life', a page on Plankton, two on 'Thumbnail Answers to Common Questions', two on Cleaning Shells in Oman and one on 'How Big? Where Found? What Arrangement?'. Pages 26 to 197 deal with the molluscs of Oman in their classes, subclasses, orders, families and sub-families.

This is a reprint of the 3rd edition of the Compendium published in 1986. It differs from the 1st edition (published in 1981) only in the correction of several figure captions (marked by an asterisk) and in the addition of an extra page (p. 411) listing further corrections which are left to the reader to carry out. It starts with a 17-page introduction on the classification, taxonomy, morphology, identification and habitat of marine molluscs, together with useful hints on the care and conservation of shells in collections.

This report is one of a series of eleven reports on the Wadden Sea covering Geomorphology; Hydrography; Flora and Vegetation; Invertebrates; Fishes and Fisheries; Birds; Mammals; Pollution; Flora and Vegetation of the Islands; Fauna of the islands; Physical planning and nature management in the area.

How can one assess a man's lifework in just a few paragraphs? In this elegant monograph Jan 0kland presents the results of research which began as an undergraduate project in 1953, with the objective of studying the distribution and ecology of freshwater snails in southeastern Norway. The fieldwork continued for a further 20 years and the scope of the project expanded to become the most comprehensive study of freshwater molluscs and their habitats ever undertaken.

This very attractively produced hardback, A4 format book is actually an illustrated catalogue of the marine molluscs found in the Italian sector of the mid-Adriatic, rather than an atlas. It includes all littoral and sub-littoral species recorded between 42@ 53.45'N and 43@ 58'N although the reasons for this delineation are not clear. It does not cover the coast or territorial waters of the former Yugoslavia, although I presume that there will be little difference in the fauna.

There has, for many years, been a need for a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the identification of freshwater gastropods. British and Irish workers have had to rely on the out-of-date and incomplete works by Macan, Ellis or Janus, or turn to continental works such as Gloer & Meier-Brook's Susswassermollusken on the German fauna, and the Dutch work by Gittenberger et al, De Nederlandse Zoetwatermollusken. This new book. The freshwater gastropods of northern and central Europe, provides a very welcome addition to the identification literature on this group of molluscs.

On first seeing this book my initial thought was to wonder whether another book on Olive shells was really necessary. It did not take long using the book to convince me that not only was a new book on the subject justified, but that this work was by far the most comprehensive revision of the genus to date.

The value of mapping local distribution of snails by tetrads (2x2 km grid squares) has been shown by the published studies of the Isle of Wight (R. C. Preece) and Suffolk (I. J. Killeen). This Atlas is a worthy successor that records the distribution of land Mollusca in modem Oxfordshire (which comprises VC23, the 'old' Oxfordshire, plus part of VC22, north-western Berkshire).

Alan Jarrett spent ten years working as a teacher in the Seychelles; he took full advantage of the opportunity this provided to both collect and study local marine mollusca, thus this book is the culmination of extensive first-hand field work.

This book begins with the statement that, with more than 500 living species, Conus is probably the largest genus of marine animals on earth. Since Linnaeus described the 35 species known to him in 1758, some 2500 names have been proposed for extant taxa and more than 1000 for fossils. Kohn has reviewed and evaluated the status of all nominal species, both recent and fossil, published from 1758 to 1840, and has considered each name in chronological sequence. In this way, priority is clearly shown, and earlier synonymy or homonymy revealed.