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Genus 7. BULIMUS, Scqpoli. 



Animal ; moderately large, having a ivell-developed head, furnished 

 with four cylindrical retractile tentacles, of which the two upper 

 ones are the more 'prominent, bearing the eyes at their extre- 

 mities; shin mostly granulated ; mantle not reflected on the 

 shell ; dish large, lanceolate behind. 



Shell ; ovate, oblong, or turreted, whorls sometimes few and ven- 

 tricose, sometimes numerous and contracted, fragile, and often 

 transparent ; mostly firm, covered not unfreauently with a 

 double hydrophanous epidermis ; columella straight, sometimes 

 one-plaited, never truncated at the end ; aperture with the 

 margins disjoined ; lip either simple or refected. 



Under the head of Bulimus are included all the oblong and elongated 

 forms of Snails, distributed almost universally throughout the mainland and 

 adjacent islands of both hemispheres, of which the rounded and more nu- 

 merous forms belong to Helix. The Achalina being separated, as we have 

 seen, from the Bul'imi by reason of the truncature of the columella ; the 

 number of Bulimi proper, compared with the Helices, are as one to two. 

 In both these genera the number of species known was comparatively 

 limited, until an expedition was made some thirty years ago by Mr. Cuming 

 to western South America, and another subsequently to the Philippine 

 Islands. "It was in 1S3G," relates Mr. Broderip, "that Mr. Cuming 

 proceeded to the Philippine Islands, by permission of the Queen Regent 

 of Spain, and aided by powerful recommendations from her government, 

 which opened to him the interior of the islands, and caused him to be re- 

 ceived with a noble hospitality, equalled only by the warm interest which 

 facilitated his pursuits wherever he arrived and made himself known." 

 Species of which we had but an imperfect knowledge, owing to the imper- 

 fect condition in which a stray specimen chanced to reach the cabinet of 

 the connoisseur, were found in luxuriant plenty, and many new species 

 were discovered in their airy solitude on the tree branches, or concealed 

 among the fallen leaves, in equal abundance. Other travellers were stimu- 

 lated to the same degree of enthusiasm, and the richly-wooded forests of 

 Bolivia and Venezuela, combining the snail-producing elements of food and 

 temperature in similar luxuriance in the opposite hemisphere, have been 

 ransacked, chiefly by plant-collectors, with similar success. 



Upon the completion of my monograph of this genus in the 'Conchologia 

 Iconica/ I was tempted to draw up a summary of the views which had 

 presented themselves to me on the general geographical distribution of the 



