378 Cox: OCCURRENCE OF n. ELEGANS AT DOVER. 



found scarcely any living shells, but many dead, of all ages, and 

 in every condition of preservation — we hunted in the long grass, 

 at the roots, which was not the right locality. On later visits 

 we found numbers of the living molluscs. 



The position of the colony is suggestive of its having been 

 originally introduced by a naturalist's hand, some few years ago. 

 It now extends about half-a-mile, on a chalky bank by the road- 

 side, in a retired locality some miles from Dover and far from 

 houses or gardens, with coarse long grass and umbelliferas. 

 The shells are on both sides of the road, and disappear where 

 the chalk bank terminates. It has been difficult to work out 

 the exact extent of the colony, as I was not able to reach Dover 

 till after the ground was hard and white with frost. When first 

 seen by Mrs. McDakin and her husband, the animals were 

 feeding on the tall grasses in some numbers before the frost set 

 in, in company with Helix caperata, H. virgata, H. ericetoru/n, 

 and II. cantlana. These were all hybernating on my arrival ; 

 no living H. capemta, H. ericetorum, or H. virgata could be 

 found, while H. cantiana and H. hispida were beneath moss 

 with Zonites nitidulus, without an epiphragm. All the speci- 

 mens of H. elegans have their mouths closed, with a thin 

 mucous epiphragm, and almost invariably are found lying 

 among the lumps of frozen chalk, with short, scanty grass 

 hardly covering the surface, often absent, having their apices 

 pointing downwards, the broad base upwards, the shells being 

 sometimes frozen to the ground. Nearly every individual 

 examined, that had not the base upwards, proved to be dead. 

 It is singular to notice that while the native species, H. virgata 

 and H. caperata.^ are in hiding, an animal of supposed southern 

 extraction should thus remain on the surface. The cold, this 

 year, came on very suddenly and might have hardened the 

 ground too rapidly for a species, stranger to frosts, to pierce 

 through. The base is the thickest part of the shell, hence, 

 possibly, the position chosen. It is curious to notice how many 



J.C., vi., July, 1891. 



