BALIA. 273 



not spotted. Baled and Balcea may therefore be typo- 

 graphical errors. M. Ch. D'Orbigny, in the ' Dictionnaire 

 d'Histoire Naturelle,' thought the name might be an 

 obsolete Latin word (balea) signifying a bark or vessel ; 

 but this meaning is not applicable to either the shape or 

 habits of our little snail, which rather dreads than courts 

 the water. Swainson substituted Balia for the original 

 name ; and his emendation has been adopted by Stabile 

 as well as Bourguignat, the latter of whom has published, 

 in his ' Ame'nites Malacologiques,' an elaborate and valu- 

 able article on the species comprised in this genus. 



1. BALIA PERVER'SA*, Linne". 



Turbo perversus, Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. xii. p. 1240. Balea fragilis, 

 F. & H. iv. p. 114, pi. cxxviii. f. 8, 9. 



BODY rounded in front, slender and tapering behind, dark- 

 brown with a shade of grey, covered with minute black 

 tubercles and specks : snout prominent and rather tumid : 

 tentacles short, rather thick; upper pair close together, 

 cylindro-conical and broad at the base, with bulbs about 

 one-sixth of their length ; lower pair very small in propor- 

 tion, and conical : foot somewhat rounded in front and 

 gradually narrowing to a tumid and slightly keeled tail. 



SHELL club-shaped, thin, semitransparent, glossy, yellowish- 

 brown, with transverse and oblique streaks of white, closely 

 but irregularly striate in the line of growth, and also marked 

 with a few remote and indistinct spiral lines : periphery 

 rounded, with a tendency to angularity : epidermis rather 

 thin : whorls 7-8, convex, but slightly compressed, regularly 

 increasing in size, the last being equal to about one-third of 

 the shell and much broader than the others, the first or top 

 whorl quite smooth, semiglobular, and shining : spire taper- 

 ing to a somewhat blunt point : suture deep : mouth squarish- 

 oval, higher than broad, sometimes furnished with a tubercular 

 tooth, which is placed nearly on the middle of the columella : 

 outer lip rather thin, white and reflected, especially over the 

 umbilicus, sinuous outside and sharply inflected above : pillar 



* Awry, or twisted the wrong way. 



