44 TlMEHRI. 



tion, I am utterly unable to say. but when kept in confine- 

 ment, they are particularly fond of the succulent 

 leaves of the different species of lily-like plants. 

 Its eggs are about the size of those of the pigeon, 

 with a hard, granulated, glistening surface, and they are 

 frequently mistaken for birds' eggs. It appears to be 

 identical with the B. hxmastoma of SCHOMBURGk'S list. 

 In B. frater cuius, the shell is small and thin, less than 

 an inch in length, of a brownish colour, and with a 

 thin lip. It is found in moist places, as in the case of 

 Streptaxis. The prettiest of these shells is the 

 B. bensoni, in which the length is about 1^-2 inches, 

 regularly turreted, and having the whorls marked with 

 faint purple-brown blotches along the line of growth, and 

 with irregular bands in the direftion of the sutures. 



Most widely distributed throughout the colony, under 

 every variety of obje6ts in moist situations, are to be 

 found the minute elongated, turreted, and many-whorled 

 shells of Stenogyra o6lona. The apex of the shell is 

 rounded and frequently truncated, and the aperture thin 

 and rounded. The whorls increase considerably in size 

 with growth, and the last or body-whorl is, compara- 

 tively, much enlarged. In the S, beckiana, the apex of 

 the shell is pointed, the whorls are very narrow and 

 equi-sized, the body-whorl being scarcely or not at all 

 enlarged. The S. goodalli is excessively minute and 

 few-whorled. This last species has been introduced into 

 English and European hot-houses from the New World, 

 and it is now almost a common English form. 



In situations where the small species above described 

 occur, will sometimes be found the glistening shells of 

 Physa and Hyalina — the latter discoidal, and the former 



