108 LIMNiEIDiE. 



I have seen these pond-snails attack and devour their 

 own brothers and sisters under the same circumstances, 

 when they had no other supply of food ; and this was 

 done by piercing the spire of the shell near its point, 

 which was thinner and somewhat eroded bv the action 

 of the water. Their shells are often coated with mud. 



It is probable that Linne considered this species to be 

 a variety of his Helix auricularia. What his H. limosa 

 was, it is now impossible to say with any certainty. His 

 epithet ^^ oblongiuscula " for that species appears to be 

 more appropriate to L. palustris ; while the term "ovata " 

 which he uses for " auricularia ^' is applicable both to 

 this last species and L. jjeregra. In the first edition of 

 the ' Fauna Suecica/ H. limosa is described as having an 

 operculum like Paludina or Bythinia ; but in the second 

 edition this character is omitted. Nearly a centmy be- 

 fore Linnets time the present species had been distin- 

 guished by Lister, although not by any specific name. 

 At least 30 species have been made by Continental au- 

 thors out of some of its countless varieties. 



4. L. auricula'ria *, Linne. 



Helix miricularia, Linn. Syst. Nat, ed. xii. p. 1249. Limnaus uuricula- 

 rius, F. & H. iv. p. 169, pi. cxxxiii. f. 1. 



Body dull greenish-brown or yellow, mottled with black, 

 and covered with veiy small bright-yellow or mill{:-white, and 

 black specks : tentacles broad, flat and conic, diverging as in 

 the last species : eyes small and indistinct : foot bordered with 

 yellow, prominent and obtusely rounded in front, keeled and 

 rounded behind. 



Shell obliquely globose-oval, thin, glossy, semitransparent, 

 yellowish-horncolour, deeply but irregularly striate by the 

 lines of growth, with very much finer and closer intermediate 

 striae, which are arranged in rows, and regularly but indi- 

 stinctly ridged in a sphal direction : epidermis thin : ivhorls 



* Ear-shaped. 



