334 Zoological Society, 



known near relations, comes from Panama. Helix ornatella (known 

 also as H. Adamsi) was collected in Pitcairn's Island, where it had 

 originally heen observed. A single specimen of the common Euro- 

 pean Helix aspersa is marked " Santa Baibara," and probably owed 

 its presence, wherever it was found, to transport by Europeans. 



Of the genus Bulimus fourteen species were collected. Among the 

 most interesting of these are seven species, two of them new, from 

 Chatham Island, one of the Gelepagos group. Five, viz. mix, cal- 

 vus, eschariferus, imifasciatus, and rugulosus, are described forms ; 

 two, to which I have ajjplied the names chemnitzioides and acha- 

 tellinus, are new, and very curious. Of these latter, the first is 

 singularly isolated in many of its features, though bearing a resem- 

 blance sufficient to indicate an affinity with certain elongated and 

 turreted Bulimi, natives of South America. The other is equally 

 distinct from any known members of this genus ; but, moreover, 

 instead of linking, as the majority of the Gelepagos land-shells do, 

 the fauna of those singular islands with the American continent, 

 rather points, as it were, in the opposite direction, and distantly 

 indicates affinity with the fauna of the Sandwich Isles. 



Unfortunately less certain as to exact locality, though contained 

 in a box labeled " Panama," is a curious small elongated Bulimus, 

 to which I have given the name fimhriatus. A form such as this, 

 suggests, when we bear in mind the varied characters of its congeners, 

 considerable doubts as to the value of the generic sections at present 

 generally received among the Pulmoniferous Mollusca. We speak 

 of Bulimus, Helix, Pupa, Achatina, and Balea, as if they were so 

 many marked groups, the species in each assimilating to ideal generic 

 types, whereas the difference between certain forms of so-called Bulimi 

 and others placed under the same generic name is greater than be- 

 tween many Bulimi and Helices or Pupce. "Without assenting to 

 the views of Ferussac, which would have amalgamated the genera 

 into one, on account of the similarity in external characters of the 

 soft parts of the animal, and fully admitting that in certain tribes 

 the shell alone may become a most important source of generic cha- 

 racter — in other words, granting that in certain groups the sources 

 of generic distinction may lie in the pneumo-skeleton — I do thmk 

 that we have not yet attained a natural arrangement of the Pulmo- 

 niferous Mollusks, and until we have solved that problem, we shall 

 be seriously impeded in the study of the laws of their distribution 

 as well as of their organization. 



Besides the Bulimi already named, there are specimens of Bulimus 

 iostomus, B. Hartwegii, and a beautiful new species lately described 

 and figured by Mr. Reeve under the name of Bidimus Kellettii, all 

 probably from the Equador ; Bulimus alternatus, from Panama ; 

 and Bulimus miltecheilus, marked from the Sandwich Islands, though 

 this curious and beautiful shell is not known to inhabit that locality ; 

 nor have we evidence sufficient that the specimen brought home by 

 Lieut. Wood was gathered there. Hitherto it is only known from 

 "San Christoval, south-eastern island of Solomon's Group, north- 

 east coast of New Holland" (Reeve), from which locahty the sped- 



