112 HELICIDiE. 



Inhab. woods and hedges, on chalky soil and oolite 

 formations in the southern and midland counties of 

 England. 



Animal warty, pale greyish brown, beneath grey ; 

 tentacles long, paler ; foot dilated, netted with im- 

 pressed lines, beneath ashy {Sturm, F. t. 21.). The 

 jaw is strong, with ribs on the front and teeth on the 

 edges. 



Shell two inches long and as much high, rather 

 solid, with the body volution extremely large and in- 

 flated, the others very little rounded, strongly striate 

 across, and minutely so in a spiral direction ; colour 

 whitish, with the bands hardly visible, or pale tawny, 

 with usually four darker bands, two of them pene- 

 trating the aperture at the pillar; aperture some- 

 what orbicular, longer than broad, with the margin 

 thick, and reflected at the pillar so as in general to 

 cover the umbilicus, or nearly so ; the inside of a 

 pale violet brown. 



The shell varies greatly: 1. in size; 2. in the 

 intensity of the bands ; 3. in the ventricoseness, 

 and 4. in the height of the spire. Monstrosities are 

 sometimes found with the spire depressed, when it is 

 Helix pomana of Miiller; and others with the spire 

 produced and conical, when it is H. scalaris of the 

 same author. 5. It is sometimes reversed ; and very 

 rarely the whorls are separated one from the other 

 like a cornucopia. (See Feruss. Hist. t. 21. f. 7, 8, 



The eggs are globular, covered with a white, 

 opaque coriaceous skin, and are about two and a half 

 lines in diameter. They are figured by Pfeifter (t. 7. 



