HELIX-HADRA. 129 



The systematic position of this form, I must freely confess, is 

 unknown to me. In its slowly widening whorls and obscure mallea- 

 tion it resembles the sections Camcena and Phania ; from these it 

 differs notably in the aperture and lip. The characters of the 

 latter are more like Hadra semicastanea ; and the prominent gib- 

 bosity or swelling around the umbilicus confirms to some extent, 

 this disposition of the species. Compare also H. majuscula Pfr. 



Subsection BADISTES Gould, 1862. 



Badistes GOULD, Otia Conchologica, p. 243. Pomatia, Hadra, 

 Camcena, Fruticicola, Dorcasia, Galaxias etc., etc., of PFEIFFER, 

 Cox, ANGAS, and other writers on Australian shells. 



The type of Badistes is H. gulosa Gould. 



This is the earliest name proposed for any division of the Austra- 

 lian Hadra, antedating Sphcerospira by several years. It may be 

 distinguished from Hadra (bipartita etc.) by a number of unimport- 

 ant characters, chiefly the less effaced granulation and more pro- 

 nounced peripheral keel. Badistes may, in fact, be considered a 

 half- way-house in the great Hadra group, on the one side develop- 

 ing into carinated forms which culminate in Thersites novceho Handier, 

 and richmondiana, on the other leading toward and all but into the 

 globular Sphcerospira and Xanthomelon. 



It will be noted that I now rank Thersites as a mere section of 

 Hadra, holding about the same relation to the normal forms that 

 Chilotrema (H. lapicida) bears to Campy Icea (H. planospiraetc.'); or 

 that ' Aglaia ' infumata, fidelis etc., bear to ' Arionta ' californiensis 

 and the allied globose forms. 



The primitive color-pattern of Badistes consists of a subsutural 

 dark band, another above the periphery, and an umbilical 'dark 

 patch or girdle. Many of the species, how.ever, depart from this 

 arrangement. 



The number of species will be reduced nearly one-third, possibly 

 more, when critical comparisons are made of good series. The 

 characters are mostly slight and variable. 



Badistes is divisible into two groups of species : 



(1.) Carinated ; or if rounded at periphery, revealing traces of 

 a distinct though obsolescent keel ; unicolored, or with a dark band 

 at suture and umbilicus. Group of H. grayi. 



(2.) Not at all carinated at periphery ; body-whorl with two or 

 three bands above, with or without an umbilical dark patch. 



Group of H. bitceniata. 

 9 



