6 SMITH : NOTE ON THE EPIDERMIS OF CYCLOPHORUS ZEBRINUS. 



remains to be done in the genera Hyalinia and Vertigo to enable us 

 to make the records of distribution more valuable. 



Under the auspices of the Conchological Society, following the 

 suggestion of Mr. Roebuck (Journ. of Conch., vol. 3, 1880-82, p. 138), 

 what the promoters call a " census " has been started. It is an 

 imitation of the system which has been carried out in so admirable 

 a manner by the late Mr. Watson in recording botanical localities. 

 As far as the census has been published, it forms a valuable store of 

 information for the purpose of studying the distribution of British 

 non-marine Mollusca, but I venture to think that in some cases more 

 care is needed in order to insure really authentic information. 



NOTE ON A VARIETY AND THE EPIDERMIS OF 

 CYCLOPHORUS ZEBRINUS OF BENSON. 



By EDGAR A. SMITH, F.Z.S., 



Zoological Department, British Museum. 



A specimen of a Cyclophorus, clothed with a very beautiful hairy 

 epidermis, has been recently presented to the British Museum by 

 Mr. Hugh Fulton, who was under the impression that it belonged to 

 a new species. Indeed this is not surprising, for, as far as I can 

 ascertain, a pilose periostracum has not been noticed in any other 

 species belonging to this group of Indian Cyclophori, and, moreover, 

 in the diagnoses given by Pfeiffer and Reeve, no reference whatever 

 is made to it, as doubtless in the specimens before them it had 

 become worn off. Benson's* description, copied by Sowerbyt, runs 

 thus : — " Epidermis crassa, fusca, plicis longitudinalibus, his setis 

 fortibus munitis, instructa." 



In the present variety it is thinnish and deciduous, of an olive- 

 brown colour, and furnished with very numerous hairs or bristles. 

 These are arranged in regular spiral series upon the lirse (or ridges) 

 which encircle the whorls, and are also disposed in oblique rows in 

 the direction of the lines of growth, which are about a millimetre 

 apart. The individual bristles are very sharply pointed, but not of 

 uniform size, the longest (about a sixteenth of an inch in length) 

 occurring upon the most prominent of the spiral lira;. 



* Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 1836, vol. v. p. 355. 

 t Thesaurus Conch. Cyclostoma Suppl., p. 157* 



