THE 



JOURNAL OF MALACOLOGY. 



No. 4. DECEMBER 21st, 1903. Vol. X. 



ON THE RESPIRATORY AND LOOOMOTORY HABITS 

 OF AMPULLARIA GLOBOSA, SWAINSON. 



By V. V. RAMANAN, M.A., F.Z.S.. i.tc, 

 Tenali, Kistna Ds., S. India. 



Introduction. 



The following observations on Ampullaria globosa, Swainson, were made 

 by me by experimenting with the Ampullarian in an aquarium specially 

 constructed for the purpose, and they ranged over a period of nearly two 

 years. At the same time I lost no opportunity of supplementing this 

 method of study, by watching the behaviour of this species in its favourite 

 natural haunts, in and about the city of Madras. 



I may mention at the outset, that many of the observations here 

 set forth are completely at variance with those of Fischer and Bouvier '", 

 and Karl Semper '^', made on an allied species A. insulorum, d'Orb. 

 Fischer and Bouvier would sometimes appear to contradict Semper and 

 vice versa, while my own observations often disagree with those of one 

 or the other, and less frequently with those of both. A number of other 

 interesting points that I have been able to bring together respecting the 

 floating and sinking habits of the Ampullarian, are not even alluded to 

 by them. The discrepancies, in their observations,'as compared with mine, 

 must be ascribed to the different nature of the species with which they 

 were working, viz., A. insulorum, d'Orb., but the serious disagreement 

 between Semper and Fischer and Bouvier, as regards the same species, 



1. I had no opportunity of consultinsr at first-hand Fischer and Bouvier's paper on the habits of 

 hresLlhms \a A. ingulorum. d'Orb., in Comptes Rend., cxi, pp. '200 e«se?., alluded to in Lang's Text- 

 hook of Comparative Anatomy (English Translation), vol. ii, p. iiQ. so I base my remarks on the 

 suMiniary Riven by Cooke, in "the volume on Molluscs in the Cambridge Natural History Series 

 p. 158. 



2. Animal Life vinternational Sci. Ser ), pp. 191, 192, 448 and 449. 



JOURN. OF Malac, 1903, vol. X. No. 4, 



