4 (LECILIOIDES. 



Caecilioides is well known to inhabit graves. Gaudry found 

 them in lacrymatories unearthed from Grecian tumuli. Rev. 

 H. Housman records that near Chichester in "an early British 

 burying-ground many skeletons were found. The bones, which 

 lay about three feet below the surface were infested with A. 

 odeida" (Journ. of Conch, iii, 1882, p. 317). In North- 

 amptonshire Messrs. Wright and Adams found C<zcilioi,des 

 abundant to a depth of 4^ ft. , in a place where skeletons of men 

 and horses have occasionally been discovered (J. of C. viii, 

 1897, p. 395). J. W. Horsley reports them similarly from a 

 Saxon cemetery near Witney (J. of C. ix, 164); and in Germany 

 Professor von Martens has recorded the presence of a great num- 

 ber of large fresh specimens in a human skull dug up at Bern- 

 burg (Nachrbl. d. Mai. Ges. 1883, p. 60). 



Definite information upon the food of Caecilioides is wanting, 

 but they probably feed upon vegetable matter, such as subter- 

 ranean fungi or possibly fine rootlets. 



The European species of Ceedlioides have no doubt been multi- 

 plied beyond reason, yet without a critical study of the types 

 it is impossible to say how many recognizable races exist. M. 

 Bourguignat and his friends had an agreeable custom of describ- 

 ing "species" from single selected specimens, ignoring connect- 

 ing forms. Published figures of shells they had never seen 

 occasionally served as a basis for supposed new species; so that 

 in the identification of real shells there is some excuse for pass- 

 ing over much work of these authors with a light heart and 

 careless eye. I have neither the time nor type-material to at- 

 tempt a critical revision of these forms. It is a work which 

 properly belongs to some European student who will make a 

 study of the local races, of the significance of variations, whether 

 individual or racial, and finally he must study Bourguignat's 

 types. This work demands great application and large series 

 of the shells, unprejudiced by selection or determination. I 

 have been able to do little more than give an account as full as 

 the original sources admit. The American forms are treated 

 more fully, my material being ample, and the literature less 

 overloaded. 



The generic name has been variously spelled, but the earliest 



