I 



Animal of Helicolimax Lamarckii, 343 



In addition to the above, I find the following observation in my papers. 

 *' April 26, 1828, A day or two since, I put a live specimen of a 

 " young Helix rubicunda (n. s. MSS.) into the same box with a Vitrina 

 " Lamarckii; and the next morning found nothing of the Helix but the 

 " shell, perfectly cleaned out.' ' 



It is well known that many of the genus Helix and Limax will 

 occasionally prey on dead animal substances ; but I know not whether it 

 has been ever ascertained that they will destroy and feed on living ones, 

 and particularly on those of their own species, as did the Vitrin(B in the 

 first of the above instances. Neither I think can it be justly said that the 

 animals were unnaturally forced into these habits: as in both the instances 

 above stated, there was no want of other substances on which the land 

 Mollusca usually feed ; and the smaller animals were killed and eaten the 

 very night after capture, before hunger could have become sufficiently 

 powerful to effect so remarkable a change as to induce a naturally phyto- 

 phagous animal to destroy and devour its own species. In other cases, I 

 have kept a solitary animal confined for nearly a fortnight in a box with 

 leaves without its suffering apparently from hunger, though I am certain 

 the leaves themselves were untouched. I am therefore greatly inclined 

 to see in this spmething more than the accidental change of taste, which 

 induces a Helix or Limax to feed occasionally on animal substances ; and 

 to regard the present animal as a second instance of a truly carnivorous 

 species of Pulmonifera^ preying like Testacella on living animals. 



These remarkable habits, together with some peculiarities of external 

 form and structure in the present animal, may, if confirmed by further 

 observation and the anatomical characters, lead hereafter to its establish- 

 ment as a new genus of Ferussac's Pulmonifera Geophila, belonging to 

 his second family, the Cochlece or " Limacons.'^ Its nearest affimty is 

 unquestionably to Vitrina f Helicolimax , Feruss.) ; to which indeed it is 

 so closely allied, that it would be very rash at present to separate it. It 

 appears to me the analogous type among the Cochlece to Parmacella in 

 the preceding family, the Limaces. 



The animal is represented in Tab. Sup. xxxviii, f. 1, 2, 3, in the in- 

 termediate state of exposure of the shell, when the greater part of the back 

 of the last volution is more or less visible. This is the appearance it assumes 

 after crawling for a very short time in the open air. In the uncoloured 



