HELIX. 209 



tie corresponds with the markings of the shell. The 

 pink hue of the mouth appears to be deeper and brighter 

 in specimens which are exposed to the sun. Drapar- 

 naud says that this colour is more perceptible in the 

 shells of those individuals which have been kept a long 

 time without food^ or after their death. These snails 

 adhere in the daytime to the stalks and leaves of grass, 

 as well as to shrubs^ by means of a rather thick calca- 

 reous secretion, which lines the outer lip of the mouth. 

 My late friend Mr. Barlee informed me that at St. Ives 

 he procured live specimens by digging some inches in 

 the sand-hills, at the roots of the Carex arenaria, where 

 the snails had buried themselves, the weather being 

 then very hot and the herbage not affording much shelter 

 from the sun's rays. Both in summer and winter they 

 close the mouths of their shells with an epiphragm, 

 which in the former case is filmy, very transparent and 

 iridescent, and in the latter opaque and like thin paper. 

 Mr. Millet says that they feed on the Eryngium mari- 

 timum. According to St. Simon they are omnivorous. 

 One of them greedily devoured a globule of slime which 

 he had taken from a slug. In Jersey the thistles are 

 covered with them. It seems only to be found on the 

 coast-line, and never inland, in this country. 



This and the three following species constitute a sub- 

 section, of which Risso made the genus Theba, from 

 Leach's MS. ; but H, Cantiana and other different forms 

 were associated with it both by Uisso and Leach. 



The present species was first described by Petiver, and 

 received from him the name ofPisana, but accompanied 

 by other characters which preclude his authority being 

 recognized for the name under the rules of the binomial 

 system. It is the H. zonaria of Pennant, H. rhodostoma 

 of Draparnaud, and H. cingenda of Montagu. 



