258 TEST ACE A ATLANTIC A. 



ciple we have a right to treat the one as a mere development 

 of the other; and, a fortiori, therefore, I cannot but think it 

 extremely rash that the Baron Paiva should have ventured to 

 record as conspecific (as it seems to me, without even a sem- 

 blance of evidence) the whole of the members of this section, 

 and that too whilst recognising the claims of the far more 

 intimately related forms around the Helix polymarpka, and 

 even himself proposing several of them as specifically distinct ! 



In its present area of distribution the L. melampoides is 

 marvellously circumscribed, — the little island known as the 

 Ilheo de Cima, off the south-eastern extremity of Porto Santo, 

 being the only spot in which it has hitherto been observed ; 

 and there might have been some show, therefore, of plausi- 

 bility, in assuming it to be a local or insular modification of 

 the L. tornat ell in a, did it not exist in a subfossil condition on 

 the mainland likewise, — thus proving to a demonstration that 

 its exaggerated features as now displayed (if we may be per- 

 mitted so to call them) are not due to any fancied influences 

 of isolation on a remote and almost inaccessible rock ; for I 

 have myself met with it in the mudd} 7 deposit of an exposed 

 sea-cliff (below the Pico dos Macaricos) to the eastward of the 

 villa, or town. Hence, since the L. tornatellina (so common in 

 Madeira proper, and less so on the Desertas) is found likewise 

 (though sparingly) in Porto Santo, I do not see how we can 

 escape the conclusion that the melampoides is truly distinct 

 from that species, and has no claim to be regarded as even a 

 Porto-Santan (and still less a more confined insular) modifi- 

 cation of it, or one either which has been gradually matured 

 since the close of the subfossil period. 1 



Lovea tornatellina. 



Helix tornatellina, Lov:e, Cambr. Phil. S. Trans, iv. 59. t. 6. 



f. 23 (1831) 



1 The L. melampoides is said by the Baron Paiva (who, as just stated, 

 treated it as an enlarged phasis of the tornatellina) to occur likewise on the 

 Ilheo de Baixo and the Ilheo de Ferro, and sparingly on even the Deserta 

 Grande ; but I cannot but look with suspicion on these habitats, particularly 

 the last one, — and all the more so because the Baron's material was collected 

 by various people, aud brought to him at Funchal ; and to my own certain 

 knowledge a large number of the boxes of specimens which he transmitted 

 to me, from time to time, for examination, were wrongly labelled as regards 

 their localities, — Madeiran, Desertan, and Porto-Santan forms (all of them 

 quite unmistakeable) being often mixed up indiscriminately. Until therefore 

 further evidence has been obtained, I shall look upon the L. melampoides as 

 still confined (in its recent state) to the Ilheo de Cima; though, at the same 

 time, I think it far from unlikely that it may be met with also on the Ilheo 

 de Baixo. 



