182 HELICID^E. 



Yar. 4. tennis. Shell dwarfed, extremely thin, and nearly 

 transparent ; bands reddish-brown. 



HABITAT : Woods and gardens (especially the latter), 

 from the Moray Firth district to the Channel Isles. I 

 have not found it so far north as Zetland. Vars. 1 and 2 

 are rather local, but not uncommon. Mr. Bridgman 

 has found the latter under hornbeam hedges near Nor- 

 wich. Var. 3. Sand-hills and cliffs on the sea-side. 

 Var. 4. Downs on the south coast of Guernsey. The 

 dwarf size and extremely thin texture of this last variety 

 are probably owing to the absence of calcareous material 

 in the soil where it is found. Monstrosities sometimes, 

 but rarely, occur in which the spire is reversed, or the 

 whorls are more or less disjoined, in some cases so 

 much so that the shell resembles a ram's-horn. The 

 late M. D'Orbigny showed me a colony of the reversed 

 monstrosity in his garden at Rochelle. Mr. Bridgman 

 succeeded in rearing a young specimen of the same 

 monstrosity and bringing it to maturity by feeding it on 

 cabbage and lettuce leaves. This species has been found 

 in the peat-bed at Newbury, but has not been noticed 

 as an upper tertiary fossil. It does not appear to inhabit 

 the North of Europe nor Germany (although C. Pfeiffer 

 has noticed it as found in gardens there) ; but its range 

 extends southward from France to Sicily, as well as to 

 Spain, Algeria, and the Azores. It seems to take the 

 place of H. pomatia in some parts of Europe. 



Lister says that, having put one of these snails and a 

 lAmax ater together in the same vessel, he found the 

 next day that the slug had been killed and half-eaten by 

 its companion; and he also remarked that the fluid, 

 which exudes so copiously from the body of H. aspersa 

 when it is pricked, was used in his time in bleaching 

 wax for artistic purposes, as well as in making a firm 



