THE NAUTILUS. 79 



Southward the genus extends to Venezuela, and even to the Gala- 

 pagos Islands, if I am right in referring the little snail described as 

 Endodonta helleri Dall to this genus. 



For many years similar snails have been known from the European 

 Tertiaries, beginning with the Eocene and running up with numer- 

 ous species through the Miocene, when the group apparently died 

 out in that region, though many of its companion groups survived. 1 



Pdre Heude, the keen and brilliant Jesuit missionary-naturalist, 

 described the first Asiatic Strobilops, in his memoirs on Chinese 

 snails, under the name Helix diodontina. He did not recognize its 

 kinship with other forms of Strobilops, nor has this been noticed by 

 any other author until the present year, when the receipt of specimens 

 of a Strobilops from Korea gave occasion for referring the Chinese 

 H. diodontina to its proper genus. The Korean species, which I 

 have decribed as Strobilops hirasei* is conic, like most American 

 species, but it is simply striate instead of being ribbed. Quite lately 

 a third Asiatic species has been sent by Mr. Hirase, discovered in 

 the main island of Japan. It will be described in the Japanese 

 Conchological Magazine. The finding of three species, in China, 

 Korea and Japan, indicates Eastern Asia as another evolution-center 

 for species of Strobilops. Probably still more will turn up there as 

 the country is further explored. 



But this is not all. Several years ago Dr. O. von Moellendorff 

 described several small snails from the Philippine Islands under the 

 generic name Plectopylis : P. quadrasi with a variety brunnescens 

 from Luzon, and P. trochospira from Bohoi. In his able and ex- 

 haustive work on Plectopylis? Mr. G. K. Gude has erected a sub- 

 genus Enteroplax for these species, rightly holding that they differ 

 markedly from true Plectopylis. In reality, these Philippine snails 

 are nothing more or less than Strobilops, having the form, sculpture, 

 peristome and internal armature of this genus, the entering lamellae 

 or cords on the parietal wall being minutely nodose, as in American 

 and East Asiatic Strobilops. These Philippine species will stand as 

 Strobilops quadrasi (Mlldff.) and Strobilops trochospira (Mlldff.). 



1 The identification of S. labyrinthica as a European fossil, recorded in Wood- 

 ward's Manual and copied in some American works, is erroneous. The foreign 

 species is quite distinct. 



The Magazine of Concbology, II, p. 39, figs. Y. Hirase, Kyoto, 1908. 



The Armature of Helicoid Land Shells, Science Gossip, 1899, p. 149. 



