OP CONCnOLOGY. 219 



separating, according to supposed important characters of the 

 soft parts, species which, conohologically, greatly resemble one 

 another, and again, on the same grounds, uniting incongruous 

 forms* 



As nearly all the proposed genera of the American Helices 

 appear to be well founded upon differences of animal and 

 shell, I have adopted them, believing that they will facilitate 

 rather than embarrass the investigator. 



Finally, I may be permitted to add, these pages being writ- 

 ten, not so much for the use of those who are, but rather for 

 those who desire to hecome, Conchologists, it has seemed to me 

 most proper that the descriptions of species should be as con- 

 cise and as free from technical words as possible ; that even 

 characters of minor importance, and those, especially, which 

 require microscopic observation, should be generally omitted, 

 or only slightly alluded to; that the would-be naturalist 



* Several recent writers have separated from the Helicidm certain species, 

 which otherwise are entirely undistinguishable from that family, on account 

 of the animal possessing a mucous pore near its tail, hke the snails of the 

 genera Arion and Parmacella. They have accordingly united them either 

 to Arionidm or ParmacellidcE. 



The late M. Moquin-Tandon, a most excellent French malacologist, 

 appears to us to have correctly determined the presence of a developed 

 spiral shell as of sufficient importance to justify the retention of these spe- 

 cies within the family Helicidm. 



The possession of this mucous pore does not appear to characterize the 

 animals of any particular groups of our species, for in those most nearly 

 allied it is absent in one and present in another, and of a well characterized 

 group of species, one only has been found to possess it. Very many of 

 these animals have not yet been examined ; so that, at present, it would 

 serve no useful purpose to use this distinction in classification. 



The differences in the jaw (buccal plate) and the armature of the tongue 

 (lingual dentition) are employed by recent investigators for the combina- 

 tion of the genera of the Helices into sub-families, several of which appear 

 to form good natural divisions, as Helicellinm for the thin, glabrous species 

 with unreflected lip. Helicince, on the contrary, includes a heterogenous 

 collection of forms, from which I would suggest that the species of Patula 

 should be separated, though I do not think they can possibly be correctly 

 associated with Vallonia and Planospira, Sirohila and Ilelicodiscus. 



A close study of all that has been accomplished by American malacolo- 

 gists convinces me that — 



1. If the sub-families proposed are properly characterized, i. e., are natu- 

 ral groups, it is impossible, with our present limited knowledge, to pro- 

 perly distribute all the species among them, and — 



2. For this reason, other sub-families must remain to be characterized ; 

 but— 



3. If, when we obtain a knowledge of the characters of the soft parts of 

 the at-present unarrangeahle groups of species, it does not show the exist- 

 ence of other sub-families, then, in all probability, no sub-famiMes, as now- 

 defined, exist. 



The able investigators, Messrs. Binney, Bland and Morse, who are now 

 carefully and thoroughly studying the dentition of our species, will doubt- 

 less, in due time, arrive at results in the highest degree satisfactory to cou- 

 chological students. Meanwhile, impressed by the unsatisfactory nature 

 of our own edifice (equally with that erected hy our predecessors), we trust 

 that it will remain unquoted by future systematists. 



