CANARIAN GROUP. 463 



question therefore that Webb's examples (which were found in 

 a dead and ivhitened, or bleached, condition) were Lanzarotan 

 ones, and not Teneriffan, and that consequently there is no 

 evidence as yet that the L. vitrea has been observed except in 

 the two eastern islands of the archipelago. 



The specimens of this Lovea from Lanzarote, which mast be 

 looked upon as the normal ones, are a trifle smaller and 

 narrower, and perhaps a little more cylindrical (or less ovate) 

 than those from Fuerteventura ; and their columella is, on the 

 average, somewhat less truncated behind, or more gradually and 

 imperceptibly rounded-off into the hinder margin of the 

 peristome ; but the latter character is so unmistakeably variable 

 in both forms that I would merely register the Fuerteventuran 

 individuals as representing a ' var. /3. submajor,'' distinctive of 

 that particular island. 1 



1 I may just call attention in this place to two Loveas which, through the 

 extreme inaccuracy of Mr. Webb, and the subsequent confusion created by 

 d'Orbigny (who figured a shell which would not accord with either of them, 

 and which flatly contradicted his own diagnosis), have been regarded hitherto, 

 I cannot but think very erroneously, as members of the Canarian fauna, — 

 namely, the ' Aehatina Paroliniana,'' W. et B., and the ' A. Tandoniana^ 

 Shuttleworth. I mentioned at p. 254 of the present volume that one of the 

 original types of the former, which is now in the British Museum, is neither 

 more nor less than the L. triticea, Lowe, which abounds on the mountains of 

 Porto Santo in the Madeiran Group, and which appears to be literally peculiar 

 to that particular island. Well knowing how liable Webb was to interchange 

 his various habitats (as is instanced by the admission of the exclusively 

 Madeiran Helix tiarella and tceniata, and the no less unmistakeably Cape- 

 Verdian H. advena and Stenogyra subdiaphana, into his Canarian ' Synopsis '), 

 I had long felt it probable, judging from the mere diagnosis, that his 

 ' Aehatina Paroliniana ' was nothing but the Porto-Santan L. tritieea, which 

 he had collected in profusion, in company with Mr. Lowe, on the higher 

 slopes of that island, in 1828 ; and therefore I was by no means surprised to 

 find, on a closer enquiry, that this conjecture was correct. But there is yet 

 another aspect of the question which has to be taken into account, and which 

 we will now consider. It appears, from the observation of Moquin-Tandon, 

 some years ago, that Webb had inadvertently included two very distinct, but 

 superficially resembling, species amongst the types of his 'A. Paroliniana,' — ■ 

 a fact which induced Shuttleworth in 1852 to propose a name for the ex- 

 amples with an edentate aperture ; and he consequently described them under 

 the title of 'A. Tandoniana.' But a little circumstance is on record which 

 throws some curious light on this nearly related but perfectly toothless form, 

 but which of course would not be appreciated by naturalists who had not 

 visited the places referred to, and who had no means therefore of testing 

 their accuracy ;— namely, that these Webbian exponents of the new ' A. Tan- 

 doniana,' in the collection of Moquin-Tandon, were labelled as coming from 

 Pico Branco — misspelt by Mousson ' Pico Bianco.' Now it would never occur 

 to them to suspect that this Pico Branco (or, according to Mousson, < Pico 

 Bianco ') was anything but a Canarian locality ; but I am not aware that 

 there is any such spot throughout the whole of these Atlantic archipelagos 

 except in Porto Santo, — where Pico Branco is one of the principal nioimtains, 

 and one moreover on which the Lovea triticea and the closely resembling 

 L. onjza are not only more decidedly plentiful but are generally found to a 

 great extent associated. Added to which, I have the certain knowledge that 

 Webb ascended the Pico Branco in 1828, in company with Mr. Lowe, for the 



