LAMINELLA. 323 



Genus LAMINELLA Pfeiffer. 



Laminella PFR., Malakozoologische Blatter, i, June, 1854, 

 p. 126 (no type selected). VON MARTENS, Die Helieeen, 

 1860, p. 250 (type Achatinella gravida Fer.). PEASE, P. Z. 

 S., 1869, p. 648. GULICK, P. Z. S., 1873, p. 90, same type- 

 SYKES, Fauna Hawaiiensis, p. 348, same type. BORCHER- 

 DING, Zoologica, xix, Heft 48, p. 84 (type L. citrina High.)- 



Shell pyramidal or ovate-conic, almost always sinistral and 

 perforate, smooth or nearly so; yellow, whitish or pink, usu- 

 ally striped longitudinally or dotted with black; columella 

 straight, often with accessory folds above the -columellar 

 lamella. Embryonic shell with the first y 2 to 1% whorls 

 smooth, the rest more or less costate or grooved longitudinally, 

 columellar with no columellar lamella or a very small one. 

 Radula substantially as in Amastra. Viviparous; arboreal. 



Type L. gravida Fer. Distribution, Oahu, Molokai, Maui 

 and Lanai. 



Unlike the Amastras, nearly all Laminellas are sinistral. 

 L. concinna seems to be indifferently dextral or sinistral. L. 

 venusta orientalis is dextral so far as known. Dextral speci- 

 mens have also been noted in L. citrina and L. bulbosa. 



" Laminella lives on bushes, vines and ferns. The most 

 common stations are the olona (Touchardia latifolia} and 

 ieie (Freycinetia arnotti) . It is usually found in rather 

 damp, dark, mountain ravines " (C. M. Cooke). 



NOMENCLATURE AND TAXONOMIC HISTORY. Pfeiffer's origi- 

 nal list of species under the then new section Laminella 

 seems now rather heterogeneous; but at the time it was pro- 

 posed the group was a natural and very judicious one, pro- 

 viding a place in the system for the Laminellce and Amastr<z 

 groups now known to be intimately related, and by some 

 authors united into one genus. The first species of Pfeiffer's 

 list is A. marmorata Gld., of which he writes "mir noch un- 

 bekannt "; the second species is A. gravida, which von Mar- 

 tens in 1860 selected as the type, a course followed by Gulick 

 and Sykes. Borcherding's selection of A. citrina as type of 

 Laminella was therefore nugatory. Nearly a year after the 

 publication of Laminella, H. and A. Adams separated from 



