HELIX. 205 



14. H. Fus'cA*, Montagu. 



H. fusca, Mont. Test. Brit. p. 424, pi. xiii. f . 1 ; F. & H. iy. p. 77, pi. cxix 

 f. 4, 5, and (animal) pi. G. G. G. f. 4. 



Body long, yellowish-white or grey, with two longitudinal 

 streaks of brown leading to the tentacles, irregularly but rather 

 finely tubercled : mantle covered "with faint and minute specks 

 of brown and milk-white : tentacles long, bluish-grey with a 

 slight tinge of violet ; bulbs short : foot very long and narrow, 

 pointed behind, with a bluish tint on the sides near the sole. 



Shell subcorneal, slightly compressed above and below, ex- 

 tremely thin and transparent, glossy, yellowish-brown, marked 

 transversely with strong but irregular wrinkles ; the surface of 

 young shells is also very finely striate in the same direction 

 like hair-cloth: periphery rounded, but encircled by a slight 

 keel : epidermis tolerably thick : whorls 5-^, convex, the last 

 occupying rather more than one-half of the shell : spire some- 

 what raised, but not pointed : suture distinct, though not deep : 

 mouth oblique, semilunar, considerably broader than high, not 

 furnished wdth a rib : outer lip very thin, reflected over the 

 umbilicus and sharply inflected above : umbilicus extremely 

 small and narrow, reduced to little more than a perforation. 

 L. 0-225. B. 0-35. 



Habitat : Woods^ on young trees, and among nettles 

 and dog-mercury, in many parts of these isles from 

 Aberdeenshire to Devon, but not everywhere. It is one 

 of our upper tertiary fossils. Montagu mentions, in his 

 Supplement (p. 148), having received through Mr. Boys 

 from Scotland a shell which would seem from the de- 

 scription to be a white variety of this species ; but the 

 source is rather suspicious, as Mr. Boys was the means 

 of introducing many exotic shells into our Fauna. The 

 finest specimens in my collection were kindly sent to 

 me by the late Mr. Thompson of Belfast, from that 

 neighbourhood. H. fusca occurs in the North and South- 



* Dark -brown. 



