376 TEST ACE A ATLANTIC A. 



such differences as these are scarcely worth noticing in a species 

 which is so eminently unstable as the H. lineata. 



As for the H. canariensis and herbicola (both of them mere 

 manuscript names of Shuttleworth), I cannot conceive that they 

 represent more than the most ordinary local modifications of 

 this naturally variable shell ; and considering that even the 

 author himself was so little convinced of their stability that he 

 did not venture to publish so much as a diagnosis of them, one 

 cannot but regret that so eminent a conchologist as Mousson 

 should have thought it desirable to do so, and thus to add (on 

 confessedly imperfect evidence) two more ' species ' (so-called) 

 to the perfect chaos which already exists around the lineata (or 

 maritima, Drap.), the variabilis, and the virgata. 1 



Helix conspurcata, 



Helix conspurcata, Drap., Hist. Nat. des Moll. 105. pi. 7. 



f. 23-25 (1805) 



Theba conspurcata, Risso, Hist. Nat. iv. 74 (1826) 

 Helix conspurcata, Pfeiff., Mon. Hel. i. 170 (1848) 



Mouss., Faun. Mai. des Can. 36 (1872) 



Habitat Teneriffam ; in aridis apricis (vel inferioribus vel 

 intermediis) hinc inde, prsecipue in cultis, congregans. 



The somewhat insignificant, European H. conspurcata^ 

 Drap., occurs in Teneriffe, where it is occasionally abundant, 

 in certain sunny spots of a low and intermediate elevation. It 

 has been found near Sta. Cruz, and more plentifully around 

 Laguna (where it was obtained by Mr. Lowe, in 1861, in the 

 Barranco del Drago) and at Souzal. At first it a good deal re- 

 sembles the H. armillata, Lowe, of the Azorean, Madeiran, and 

 Cape Verde archipelagos (and which exists also, under a rather 

 more strongly striated phasis, in Morocco, from whence it was 

 re-described inadvertently by Mr. Lowe as the ' H. eumceus ') ; 



1 I say 'confessedly,' because Mousson, in speaking of the II. canariensis, 

 says : ' M. Shuttleworth a designe sous le nom de H. canariensis une coquille, 

 qu'il n'a pas diagnosee, sans doute parce qu'elle rentre par rapport & sa forme 

 dans le chaos des modifications de la variabilis, Drap. Si done nous donnons 

 une description, ce n'est pas dans le but de 1'eriger en espece, mais pour ne 

 pas admittre un nom sans definition.' And, again, in his notice of the 

 H. herbicola, he writes : ' Encore une espece difficile & placer, et non decrite 

 par 1'auteur ; ' and, after stating that the three features which seem to dis- 

 tinguish it from the lineata are its more depressed spire, its just appreciably 

 more angulose basal whorl, and its slightly less opake surface, he further 

 adds : ' D'autres individus, rapportSs par M. de Fritsch, sont tin peu plus 

 eleves, quoique toujours obtus, moins anguleux, et moins polis. De nouvelles 

 observations sur les rapports de vie de ces deux formes pourront seules 

 decider sur leur reunion ou separation.' With only such data as this, one 

 cannot but think that it would have been better not to have taxed such a 

 terribly confused group as the present one with two more 'new species,' 

 which by his own admission were by no means absolutely necessary. 



