312 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



sorry I was unable to obtain a copy of the original paper which 

 prevents me from giving a description. 



This is about all the reliable information about the olfactory 

 organ ; but in no case do satisfactory experiments seem to have 

 been made, in order to test the physiological function of the organ. 



On the other hand Moquin-Tandon's experiments, which 

 have subsequently been repeated by Velten, are too physiological, 

 while his anatomical investigations of the supposed organ of 

 smell are of little value. This great French Conchologist 

 believed that the olfactory sense resided in the tentacles. He 

 cut off the superior or great tentacles of a Helix hortetisis and left 

 it starving for months under a flower pot. When the animal was 

 taken out again^ it had lost all sensation of smell. He concluded 

 therefore that this sense was placed in the oculiferous tentacles. 



Velten cut away the same two tentacles and poured a drop 

 of turpentine or such-like substance in its path : the snail turned 

 aside, But when he removed the small tentacles as well, the 

 animal crept heedlessly into the corrosive fluids. This seemed 

 to prove that both pairs of tentacles are concerned in bringing 

 about the perception of smell. The substances, however, 

 might easily exert an influence on the tentacles, which are well 

 supplied with nerves, without necessarily pointing to an olfactory 

 organ. 



These experiments, therefore, are not conclusive, and it is 

 much more probable that the organ of smell in land shells is 

 situated either somewhere near the orifice to the lungs or within 

 the lung chamber. 



Pupa umbilicata var. albina at Christchurch, S. 

 Hants. — While searching an old willow trunk in my garden for 

 Balta, I found a single specimen of the above. It is new to this 

 part of Hampshire. The same tree yielded the albine examples 

 of Clausilia rugosa previously recorded. — J. H. Ashford, 

 Feb. 9th, 1885. 



I.e., iv., April, 1885. 



