86 TESTACEA ATLANTICA. 



than the equally rare appearance, in the subfossil deposits of 

 that same island, of the common 11. lapicida of more northern 

 latitudes. However in Madeira proper it is not only at the 

 Jardim that it has been met with, for Mr. Watson obtained a 

 single example on some wild and uncultivated rocks in the 

 Ribeira dos Soccorridos. 



The P. rotundata may be known from the P. Guerineana 

 (which is so characteristic of, and unmistakably indigenous in, 

 the clamp sylvan districts of Madeira proper) by being on the 

 average a trifle smaller, but at the same time less flattened and 

 less strongly keeled ; by its volutions being wider, convexer, and 

 less numerous, as well as regularly striated with sharp, hair- 

 like, oblique ridges (instead of broad and irregular plicae), and 

 very much more obscurely clouded with suffused bands ; by its 

 umbilicus being smaller ; and by the under-region of its basal 

 whorl being not only larger and more inflated, but likewise 

 almost opake and conspicuously sculptured with coarse ra- 

 diating costate lines. 



(§ Pyramidida, Fitz.) 



Patula pygmsea. 



Helix pygmaea, Drap., Hist. Nat. 114. t. 8. f. 9, 10 (1805). 

 „ „ Pfeif., Mori. Hel. i. 97 (1848) 



„ „ Paiva, Mori. Moll. Mad. 78 (1867) 



„ „ IVatson, Journ. des Conch. 222 (1876) 



Habitat Maderam, rarissime ; in Eibeiro de Vasco OKI, prope 

 Funchal, a Revdo. R. B. Watson, a.d. 1866, reperta. Etiam semi- 

 fossil is prope Canical a Dom. Watson occurrere dicitur. 



This common little European Patula is one of the two or 

 three Madeiran land-shells which I have not myself had an op- 

 portunity of inspecting. Indeed its introduction into the cata- 

 logue is comparatively recent, — a few examples having been 

 found by the Rev. R. B. Watson, in the Ribeira de Vasco Gil, 

 near Funchal, in 1866. Hitherto the P. pusilla, Lowe, has 

 been looked upon (though, as it has always seemed to me, very 

 erroneously) as the representative in Madeira of this minute 

 species of more northern latitudes ; but now that the true 

 pygmcBa has been brought to light, this can no longer be the 

 case, unless indeed the latter should owe its presence in the 

 island to recent accidental introduction from Europe, — a sup- 

 position, however, which will hardly be tenable if the assertion 

 that it has been detected also in a subfossil state at Canical 

 be correct. 



