SAINT HELENA. 557 



Unfortunately the distinctions between the Succineas, in most 

 parts of the world, are often so trifling that, unless we are pre- 

 pared to make a tabula rasa of an overwhelming proportion of 

 them, we have practically no choice left but to acknowledge, as 

 specific, characters which would be utterly valueless in other 

 departments of the Helicidce ; and, in the present instance, whe- 

 ther I am right or wrong in recording the S. picta as a true 

 species ( — a point which perhaps can never absolutely be set- 

 tled), it will be admitted at any rate to be a distinguishable 

 form, and one which, as such, ought not to be entirely ignored. 

 My own unbiassed judgment would probably lead me to cite it 

 as a mere local aspect of the S. Sanctce-Helence ; but since I 

 take it to be the particular shell which Pfeiffer had in view as 

 the i S. picta'' (concerning which he adds ' Habitat Diana's 

 Peak ins. St. Helenas '), and Mr. Melliss as the ' S. rudorina,' 1 

 prefer to give it the advantage of the doubt and to register it 

 as separate. 1 



As regards mere length, the S. picta does not differ appre- 

 ciably from the Sanctce-Helence, the larger example measuring 

 as much as 1\ or even 8 lines ; but when viewed en masse, it 

 will be seen to be just perceptibly narrower in outline, its basal 

 volution being a trifle less inflated (or more laterally compressed) 

 in front ; and its spire, although small, is longer and more de- 

 veloped. Its aperture, too, is, in proportion, slightly more 

 elongated and obliquely produced ; its surface, which is perhaps 

 somewhat more evenly striate, has indications of a few obsolete, 

 fragmentary, remote, broken-up spiral lines or impressions ; and 

 its colour is usually of the dark reddish corneous-brown which 

 characterises the less pallid state of the Sanctce-Helence. 



Succinea Bensoniana. 



Succinea Bensoniana, Forbes, Joum. Zool. Soc. viii. 198. 



t, 5. f. 7 (1852) 

 „ asperula, Pfeiff., Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 326 



(1856) 

 „ „ Id., Mon. Hel. iv. 812 (1859) 



„ Bensoniana, Id., ibid. 818 (1859) 



„ asperula, Melliss, St. Hel. 119 (1875) 



„ picta, Id. [nee Pfeiff.'], ibid. 119 (1875) 



„ helense, Id. [nee Forbes], ibid. 119 (1875) 



solidula, Id. [nee Pfeiff.], ibid. 119 (1875) 



5? 



1 Mr. Melliss, however, clearly made some mistake in referring it to the 

 S. rudorina of ' Gould,' — for I cannot perceive that Gould ever published a 

 Succinea under that title. He has a ' S. jpudorina,' but that is not a St, 

 Helena shell at all, but one which occurs in the Sandwich Islands. 



