or 
HELIX. 35 
HELIX. 
Although the value of the Linnean collection to the naturalist 
has been greatly deteriorated, throughout the entire cabinet, by 
the gradual obliteration of the significant numerals both upon 
the shells and the tin trays which contain the smaller examples, 
yet no portion has suffered so greatly as the genus Heliz. 
Almost the entire contents of the trays have been promiscuously 
thrown upon the cotton wadding which lines the drawers; and 
as the majority of the described members of this genus were of 
small size, and consequently did not afford space for any in- 
scription upon them, this proceeding is particularly to be de- 
plored. Under these circumstances, the only mode of grappling 
with the difficulty was to compare each diagnosis with the 
entire contents of those drawers which contained the Helices — 
(a task which demanded both time and patience), and act upon 
the principle, that should one shell, and one alone, accord with 
the description, and that species be noted in the manuscripts 
as present in the museum, no reasonable doubt could be enter- 
tained of the typical authority of the specimens. Yet, after all, 
this process of analysis, tedious as it has proved, is perhaps the 
soundest of all testimonies, when not baffled, as it too often has 
been, by the presence in the cabinet of some other allied species, 
and the equal balance of conflicting synonyms. 
Helix scavabrus. 
Our author, in addition to those figures which correctly 
represent the Scarabus imbrium of Férussac (the purified Auri- 
cula scarabeus of Lamarck), has cited in the ‘Systema,’ “‘ Pet. 
Gaz. pl. 4, f.10” (the Scar. Petiverianus of the same writer), 
and “ List. Conch. 4, s. 5, c®5, t. 1, f. 2” (bis Scar. plheatus). 
Although the latter (and, indeed, both these shells) is so similar 
to imbrium in general aspect, that few of the earlier writers 
