HELIX. 215 



through Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy 

 to Algeria, Greece, and Palestine. 



This is a sluggish mollusk and never leaves its retreat 

 or place of attachment, except after rain. It is often 

 found in gardens and corn-fields near the sea. Bouchard- 

 Chantereaux says that between the months of August 

 and October it lays from 35 to 40 eggs, which are quite 

 white and opaque, and that the young are excluded at 

 the end of from fifteen to twenty days, becoming adult 

 at the end of the next year. Brard hazarded a singular 

 conjecture, that the tinge of violet-brown which is ob- 

 servable in the shells of this and a few other allied spe- 

 cies, and which fades away soon after death, may be 

 owing to an exudation or secretion by the animal of 

 oxide of manganese. 



H. caperata differs from H. virgata in its much smaller 

 size, its depressed spire and larger umbilicus, and espe- 

 cially in the numerous rib-like stria3 which hoop round 

 each whorl. This appears to be the H. striatala of 

 Miiller, but not that of Linne. It is also in all proba- 

 bility the H. fasciolata and H. intersecta of Poiret, and 

 certainly the last-named species of Michaud ; but Poiret's 

 descriptions are much too brief and obscure for the pur- 

 pose of identification. Draparnaud also described and 

 figured the present species under the name of H. striata ; 

 but although the work which contains this description 

 and figure (the ' Tableau ') bears date and was published 

 before that of Montagu, Draparnaud's name cannot be 

 adopted, because Miiller had previously described another 

 species of Helix under the same name. The present 

 species is allied to H. conspurcata of Draparnaud, which, 

 however, has a hispid shell and belongs to the last section 

 of Helix. 



A specimen of the H. terrestris of Pennant (H. elegans, 



