46 LAND AND FRESHWATER MOLLUSCA OF INDIA. 



SUPPLEMENT TO PAKT VII. 



SiNCK describing the new subgenus Natalia at p. 22, Plate LXVIII., 

 Mr. E. R. Sykes has been good enough to point out that the name 

 has been used before by Gray in Echinoderms in 1840. I there- 

 fore rename it " Hijahia" from the Arabic word " hijab," conceal- 

 ment^ having reference to its shy habit, I am also enabled to give 

 a fuller description of the animal from life, for Mr. John Ponsonby 

 having received several living specimens in July, he very kindly 

 forwarded them to me, for which 1 cannot thank him too much. 

 Six of these are still living while writing in December. With the 

 advent of the cold weather they have become very sluggish. They 

 liave never been very active, retiring into their shells on the 

 slightest touch, and remaining there for a long time before ven- 

 turing out again. When under examination they appeared to 

 possess a higher degree of sensibility of disturbance of their sur- 

 roundings than is usual in land-shells. 



The animal is a very pale grey, almost white, the surface smootli. 

 while, in remarkable contrast, the tentacles are yellow in colour. 

 In form the tentacles are not at all like those of the Asiatic Cyclo- 

 2>hor{ ; they are not annulated, when contracted are broad at the 

 base and blunted, and when fully extended are not so sharply and 

 finely pointed, being soft and weak in structure. The eye is 

 situated upon a convex prominence at the outer basal side. The 

 foot is rounded behind, just extending bej-ond the circumference of 

 the operculum ; when moving about it is often spread out into an 

 extremely thin flat disc. The edge of the mantle is turned back, 

 and just overlaps the thin peristome on the outer margin. The 

 only thing they fed upon kindly Avas cucumber, and now turnip ; 

 lettuce they did not appear to care for. 



