TPIE CARNIVOROUS SLUGS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 109 



TRK HISTORY OF THE GENUS APERA. 



Neai'ly forty years ago, when Mr. J. S. Gibbons was visit- 

 ing* Natal, he found a sti'ange shig- under a stone in a wood. 

 This .-inimal puzzled him greatly ; it seemed more like a 

 Testacella than anything else he knew ; yet clearly it was 

 not a Testacella, for where the shell should have been 

 there was merely a little hole — -the respiratory orifice.^ 

 Gibbons therefore sent the slug to Mr. VV. G. Binney, with a 

 description of its appearance when alive. Binney. examined 

 its radula, and found that its teeth were like those of 

 Glandina. He also discovered that it had no jaw, but that 

 it possessed an internal shell, Avhich was broken when he 

 found it, but which he wrongly assumed to be hexagonal 

 when perfect. And Binney ^ established a new genus for this 

 peculiar animal, and published a description of it in 1879, 

 together w;th Gibbons's account of its appearance when alive, 

 a rough drawing of the animal, and a figure of its radula. 

 And he named the slug Chlamydephor us gibbonsi. 



In 1884 Binney'^ repeated his description of the radula of 

 this slug and reproduced his figure. In the same year Tryon •■ 

 reproduced the rough drawing of the animal, and gave a brief 

 description of the genus, which he placed in the Testacel- 

 lidas; and he also amended the spelling of the generic name, 

 changing it to Chlamy dophorus. In the following year, 

 however, he reverted to the original sjjelling, when he des- 

 cribed the genus and species in the 'Manual of Conchology,' ^ 

 and again reproduced the rough drawing of the animal. 



Now Binney named the genus Chlamydephor us because 

 he said that the mantle covered the whole back. But in this 

 Binney was wrong, as Heynemanu '' was the first to point out, 



' Vide Collinge, W. E., ' Ami. Natal Mas.," 1910. vol. ii, p. 164. 

 - ■ Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard,' vol. v, p. 331, pi. ii, figs, a, 1). 

 ^ ■' Notes on the Jaw and Lingual Dentition of Pulmonate Mol- 

 lusks." • Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci.,' vol. iii, p. 81, pi. xvii, fig. a. 

 ^ • Struct, and Syst. Conch.." vol. iii. p. 13, pi. ci, fig. 47. 

 ^ Vol. i (2nd ser.). jjp. 7. 17. pi. ii, fig. 95. 

 '"' • Jahrb. d. Deutsch. Mai. Ges.,' vol. xii. p. 17, ])]. ii. figs. 5-7. 



