HELIX. 205 



14. H. FUS'CA*, Montagu. 



H.fuaca, Mont. Test. Brit. p. 424, pi. xiii. f. 1 ; F. & H. iv. p. 77, 

 pi. cxix. f . 4, 5, and (animal) pi. G. G. G. f. 4. 



BODY long, yellowish-white or grey, with two longitudinal 

 streaks of brown leading to the tentacles, irregularly but 

 rather finely tubercled : mantle covered with faint and 

 minute specks of brown and milk-white: tentacles long, 

 bluish-grey with a slight tinge of violet ; bulbs short : foot 

 very long and narrow, pointed behind, with a bluish tint on 

 the sides near the sole. 



SHELL subconical, slightly compressed above and below, 

 extremely thin and transparent, glossy, yellowish-brown, 

 marked transversely with strong but irregular wrinkles ; the 

 surface of young shells is also very finely striate in the same 

 direction like hair-cloth : periphery rounded, but encircled 

 by a slight keel : epidermis tolerably thick : whorls 5 J, con- 

 vex, the last occupying rather more than one-half of the 

 shell : spire somewhat raised, but not pointed : suture dis- 

 tinct, though not deep : mouth oblique, semilunar, consider- 

 ably broader than high, not furnished with a rib : outer lip 

 very thin, reflected over the umbilicus and sharply inflected 

 above : umbilicus extremely small and narrow, reduced to a 

 little more than a perforation. L. 0*225. B. 0'35. 



HABITAT : Woods, on young trees, and among nettles 

 and dog-mercury, in many parts of these isles from 

 Aberdeenshire to Devon, but not everywhere. It is one 

 of our upper tertiary fossils. Montagu mentions, in his 

 Supplement (p. 148), having received through Mr. Boys 

 from Scotland a shell which would seem from the de- 

 scription to be a white variety of this species ; but the 

 source is rather suspicious, as Mr. Boys was the means 

 of introducing many exotic shells into our Fauna. The 

 finest specimens in my collection were kindly sent to 

 me by the late Mr. Thompson of Belfast, from that 

 neighbourhood. H. fusca occurs in the North and South- 



* Dark-brown. 



