HELIX. 



129 



thickish, sparsely clothed with short whitish hairs ; whorls 

 4-4I, very tumid, body whorl occupying about two-thirds of 

 the shell ; spire very slightly produced, apex obtuse ; suture 

 very deep ; mouth forming about three-fourths of a circle ; 

 outer lip thin, very little reflected, except near the uinbilicus, 

 which is small and shallow. 



Inhabits downs near the sea-coast, among loose 

 stones and at the roots of grass and other plants in 

 the Channel Islands, as well as similar places in a few 

 of the southern counties of England. The following 

 localities are given for it in ' British Conchology ' : — 

 Torquay, Plymouth, Megavissey, Pendennis, Land's 

 End, and Scilly Isles. Mr. E. J. Lowe says he has 

 found it in woods at Stanton-on-the-Wolds, Notting- 

 hamshire. Captain Brown, in his ' Illustrations of the 

 Recent Conchology of Great Britain,' laid claim to 

 having first discovered it on the Lomond Hills in 

 Fifeshire, and he described it in the first edition of 

 that work under the name of Vitrhia membraiiacea. 

 Subsequent writers do not seem, however, to have 

 credited him with the discovery. It was first observed 

 in Guernsey by the late Professor Edward Forbes, and 

 Dr. Gray, to whom he had given some living speci- 

 mens, described it as a British species in 1840. In 

 Guernsey the range of this interesting mollusc seems 

 to be chiefly confined to the southern end of the 

 island, where, though local, it occurs in some abund- 

 ance. It is gregarious, and I found it more plenti- 

 fully than elsewhere in hollows on slopes, where small 

 pieces of disintegrated rock had slipped from above, 

 and were piled together in masses. A small species 

 of sorrel (Rnmex acetosclla, I think) grows plentifully 



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