LIMN^A. 59 



considerable distance from its usual place of abode. 

 Gwyn Jeffreys says : "A writer in the 'Zoologist' lately 

 stated (p. 7400) that it ate minnows when they were 

 confined together in an aquarium. 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 by the action of the 

 water." — B.C., vol. i. p. 107. This species is exceed- 

 ingly prolific ; a single individual has been known to 

 lay 1300 eggs during the breeding season. 



Var. I. Burnetii. — Body a little broader than that of the 

 typical form, dark olive, spotted with opaque yellow; mantle 

 nearly black with a few paler spots. Shell rather globular and 

 solid, of a dull aspect, yellowish-brown ; closely and strongly 

 striate in the line of growth ; epidermis rather thick ; the last 

 whorl nearly covering all the others ; spire exceedingly short, 

 nearly truncate, and almost intorted. Loch Skene, Dumfries- 

 shire (Burnett), Breconshire (Moggridge). In the stomach of 

 a gillaroo trout caught in a lake in Co. Tipperary (Walker), 

 B.C. 



Var. 2. lacustris. — Body of a darker colour than usual. Shell 

 resembling that of the last variety, but it is much smaller and 

 more glossy, and has strong and regular transverse grooves, 

 and the spire is not quite so short nor inclined to be intorted. 

 The shell is often eroded. Mountain lakes in Zetland, Scotland, 

 Ireland, and the North of England, B.C. I found a smaller 

 form of this variety in the River Clouden, near Dumfries. 



Var. 3. lutea. — Shell remarkably solid, having a very short 

 spire of from 3 to 4 whorls. South Devon (Montague), South 

 Wales (J. G. J.), thrown up by the tide at the mouths of rivers, 

 B.C. 



Var. 4. ovata. — Body of a paler colour. Shell ampullaceous 

 and rather thinner than usual ; luhorls exceedingly convex, the 

 last being larger in proportion to the rest ; spire very short ; 



