108 CARYCHIID.E. 



included it with the land-snails. Bouehard-Chante- 

 reaux has given a good account of its habits. Ac- 

 cording to him the animal is rather timid ; when you 

 hold it by the shell, it stretches itself out and seeks a 

 point d'appui ; it feeds on the debris of seaweeds, and 

 loves moist, dark, and saltish places ; it can live a long 

 time in sea-water, but soon dies on immersion in fresh 

 water. I may, however, remark that I kept several 

 living specimens in pure spring-water for two hours, 

 and that, soon after they were taken out of the water, 

 all of them revived and crawled about. The French 

 naturalist goes on to say that when the animal crawls 

 on a piece of glass, only a slight undulation can be seen 

 at a time, being caused by the muscular action of the 

 foot ; this movement proceeds from the hinder part of 

 the foot, and terminates at the anterior end before 

 another undulation begins. [Gould describes the foot 

 as " transversely divided at the anterior third."] It 

 lays from 12 to 30 eggs in the summer; these are 

 agglutinated by a viscous matter, so as to form a small 

 group, which is attached to the underside of moist 

 stones . The eggs are globular, yellowish, and quite trans- 

 parent, about one-third of a millimetre in diameter. 

 They are hatched in about 15 days after being laid; 

 and the young do not attain full maturity till the end 

 of the second year. It does not hibernate. In de- 

 scribing the animal he mentions two round and reddish 

 spots on that part of the head where in most of the 

 Helicidae the lower pair of tentacles are placed. This 

 I have not observed in English specimens. The shell 

 of the variety ringens often exhibits the remains of two 

 or three disused outer lips with their successive rows of 

 teeth or plaits. Its surface is occasionally eroded, pro- 

 bably by some solvent action of the sea-water. This 



