HELIX. 55 



chocolate brown in the typical variety, occasionally white 

 or rose-coloured. Base much rounded, projecting near 

 the pillar lip, quite imperforate when adult, slightly um- 

 bilicated when young. 



The most ordinary colours of this snail are yellow, 

 brownish-drab, and flesh-colour, with from one to five 

 zones of chocolate brown, or more rarely with two bands 

 of the latter hue, occupying so large a surface as to leave 

 only a linear portion of the ground-colour between them, 

 another narrow one just beneath the suture, and a third 

 broad zone in the middle of the lower disk. An extremely 

 common form has only a single dark sub-central band 

 (edged sometimes with white) which runs along the base 

 of the lesser volutions. To specify the minor variations 

 would be tedious, so numerous are they, not only in 

 arrangement of colouring, but also in size and elevation or 

 dilatation of the general form. The interior of the mouth 

 is generally pale or whitish, but the more darkly painted 

 shells often exhibit a tinge of violet. 



We have followed Pfeifter, Deshayes, &c, in re-uniting 

 hortensis and hybrida to the typical nemoralis, not being 

 able to detect any peculiarity in individuals of the dark- 

 mouthed form, which is not likewise represented in the 

 white -mouthed variety, between which extremes the hy- 

 brida is the connecting link. 



The usual diameter is about seven-eighths of an inch. 



The animal is of an olivaceous yellow except on the 

 neck and upper part of the head, where it is banded 

 by dark brown with a pale linear stripe down the centre. 

 The tentacula are dusky above. The mantle is pale sul- 

 phur-yellow. Almost everywhere among the British 

 Islands in gardens and fields, often very abundant and 

 beautifully variegated in the neighbourhood of the sea. 



