144 



CATALOGUE 



OF 



PROSERPINIDiE. 



Muzzle short, annulated. Tentacles lateral, subulate, short, 

 distant. Eyes sessile, on the outer side of the base of the ten- 

 tacles ; sides simple, without any membranaceous fringe or 

 lateral beards. The lateral central teeth large, irregular, lobed 

 or dentated. Foot moderate, truncated in front, acute and 

 keeled above behind, with a concavity in the front part for the 

 base of the shell, lined with an extension of the mantle. Oper- 

 culum none. Shell spiral, depressed ; whorls close-pressed, more 

 or less covered with a polished coat. Aperture lunate, with a 

 fold forming a slight truncate canal at the columnar angle. 

 Peristome simple, acute ; throat and inner lip with spiral la- 

 minae ; axis covered with a callous deposit ; the septa between 

 the upper whorls absorbed. 



Proserpinidse, Gray, 1847, in Proc. Zool. Soc. xv. p. 182. 

 Proserpinaceae, Poet/, 1854, in Memor. Hist. Nat. de Cuba, i. 

 p. 392. 



Pfr. Mon. Auric, p. 167. 



This family, instituted for the genus Proserpina by Dr. Gray, 



was ascribed by most authors to the family of Helicidce (the 

 animal being unknown), and only by D'Orbigny to Cyclosto- 

 midce ; but it must evidently be excluded from the Helicidce, 

 because the observations of Chitty, Bland, Poey, Gundlach and 

 Gray have shown the animal to be furnished with only two 

 tentacles, oculated at their bases, and also that the internal 

 walls of the whorls are regularly absorbed, as is the case in the 

 Helicinidce and Auricididce. (Compare Bland in Ann. Lye. N. 

 York, vi. p. 75, and Pfeiffer in Malak. Bl. 1854, p. 195.) 



The affinity to Helicinidce is so great, that only the want of an 

 operculum prohibits the junction of Proserpinidce with that fa- 

 mily, and legitimates the adoption of a separate family for these 

 shells ; although H. and A. Adams still enumerate the genus 



