BOYCOTT : ON VITBINA MAJOB. 127 



Continental examples of major, whicli I have not yet been able to 

 obtain. 



Vitrina rmjor h described by Germain (p. 62) as common almost 

 everywhere in Franca, especially in tie west and south, and by 

 Geyer (p. 20) as extending from Franc3 and Belgium into western 

 Germany as far east as Bremen and Aschaffenburg. There seems 

 to be no reason why it should not occur in this country, and this 

 is, in fact, not the first time that its occurrence has been reported. 

 Nearly a hundred years ago Gwyn Jeffreys ^ identified as Vitrina 

 c/rajjarnaldi (which appears to be universally regarded as synonymous 

 with F. major) a form which he found in abundance at the roots 

 of Roscc spinosissima on Swansea Burrows ; it differed from pellucida 

 in having the aperture " elliptico-lunata " instead of " sub- 

 rotundata " and the body " griseum " rather than " albo cinereum " ; 

 he notes, too, that in pellucida the spire is " more central and 

 produced " and the " animal not so disproportionately large ". 

 These characters are hardly diagnostic, but they are suggestive, 

 and it seems likely that his youthful enthusiasm was more correct 

 than the maturer caution which led him thirty years later ^ to 

 include his V. draparnaldi with var. depressiuscula of pellucida. 

 J. W. Taylor ^ says : "I have never seen a British specimen of the 

 true Vitrina major Fer. {V. draparnaldi Cuvier), yet Continental 

 authors almost universally describe it as a British species," and 

 J. R. Le B. Tomlin and E. D. Marquand * note that in the Channel 

 Isles the pellucida " all belong to a form which is flatter and 

 proportionately more elongate than the type ". 



The form and function of the remarkable swelling on the oviduct 

 require further consideration. It is singularly firm and hard, with 

 a smooth shining surface, and at first sight reminds one of a gizzard 

 of some sort. On section (Fig. 4) it has a thick muscular coat 

 externally which encloses a mass of glandular tissue. The oviduct 

 narrows somewhat where it enters at the upper end and then 

 expands into an irregular cavity lined with the glandular tissue, 

 which consists of large clear cells, probably with a mucoid or 

 albuminous secretion ; there are, at any rate, no histological signs 

 of the secretion being calcareous. Towards the lower end the cavity 

 becomes lined with regular epithelium, and, passing below the 

 glandular tissue, has a close muscular investment and finally, the 

 lumen becoming smaller and smaller, opens into the lower oviduct 

 through a narrow orifice, which projects into the oviduct like a spout. 

 Fig. 4 shows diagrammatically a longitudinal section through the 



1 Trans. Linnean Soc, vol. xvi, 1830, p. 326 : paper dated " Swansea, 

 1st September, 1828," i.e. when the author was about 19. 



2 British Conchology, vol. i, 1862, p. 157. 



* Monograph, vol. iii, 1906, p. 8. 



* Journ. Conch., vol. x, 1903, p. 285. 



