178 CEPOLIS. 



Distribution, greater Antilles, Bahamas, Florida Keys. 



See under Plagioptycha for notes on the fossil forms. 



The prominent features of this group are (1) the smooth, high 

 arched jaw with median projection, (2) the long radula with few 

 longitudinal rows, middle and lateral teeth with long, narrow basal 

 plates and short, broadly rounded mesocones, no side cusps, margi- 

 nals with short ento+ mesocones, (3) the weak or even lacking 

 retractor of the long penis, the club-shaped dart sack and two-lobed 

 mucus gland ; long, unbranched spermatheca duct, etc. 



The only near ally of Cepolis is the genus Polymita, which 

 inhabits the same tract. The latter has the same type of jaw and 

 genitalia, but differs in the radula with over twice as many longitu- 

 dinal rows of peculiarly modified teeth, all of them bearing three 

 nearly equal cusps. From the Californian and Mexican Epiphrag- 

 mophora species Cepolis differs in the very characteristic form of 

 the dart sack, the short inner cusps of the marginal teeth, theribless 

 jaw, etc. 



Part of the species of this genus are ground snails with dull 

 brownish shells, but little variegated, as in the sections Cepolis, 

 Jeanneretia, Eurycampta, Plagioptycha; part are arboreal, and in 

 these the shell is generally bright in color, often with a rich and 

 beautiful banded or streaked pattern, Coryda, Hemitrochus and 

 Dialeuca being of this sort. A parallel series of variations is seen 

 in the Philippine Island Cochlostylas, where we have also arboreal 

 and terrestrial forms. 



This genus is remarkably homogeneous in characters of the soft 

 anatomy, which offers no divergence of more than specific value 

 throughout the entire group. I have given on plates 52 and 57 

 drawings representing the anatomy of a sufficient number of the 

 sectional groups to allow any malacologist to judge for himself of 

 the literal truth of this statement. The shells afford characters for 

 several sectional divisions, of which it must be said that although 

 the typical species are quite different, intermediate forms reduce the 

 diagnostic sectional characters to a minimum. This intergradation 

 has caused me to disregard the fact that former authors have dis- 

 tributed the elements of my genus Cepolis far and wide throughout 

 the Helix series ; and I venture to predict that any one having a 

 fairly complete collection of the species will endorse the views here 

 advanced if he will bring the species together and observe the 

 transition forms uniting the various sections. Cepolis is bound to 



