JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY 337 



detailed and special articles, upon subjects the author has not 

 had space to treat fully upon. An ample glossary concludes the 

 volume, which will (although containing some manifest errors, 

 a result probably of the haste in which the work was evidently 

 compiled), be found useful and handy in many ways by the busy 

 and energetic collector. — J. W. T. 



ON THE SPECIFIC DISTINCTNESS 



AND THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF 



TESTACELLA SCUTULUM G. B. Sower by. 



By JOHN W. TAYLOR, F.L.S., 



Membre Honoraire de la Soci^t^ Malacologique de France. 



The investigations instituted by myself and Mr. Roebuck 

 with the valued co-operation of Mr. C. Ashford into the 

 structure and distribution of the British Land and Fresh Water 

 Shells, for the forthcoming Monograph of our native species, 

 has led us, amongst other interesting results, to recognise the 

 specific distinctness of T. scutulum, which discovery I think it 

 desirable to place permanently on record without further delay. 



History, &c. 



The Testacella scutulum was first separated from T. Jialiot- 

 idea as a distinct species by Mr. G. B.Sovverby, in his 'Genera 

 of Recent and Fossil Shells', published in 1823, and figured on 

 PI. 159 of that work. He described the shell as '■Testa ovata, 

 antice paidiivi acuminata, extus plana, clavicula arcuata, elevata\ 

 and also remarked upon the near resemblance of the animal to 

 that of T. haliotidea, and upon the absence of the double row 

 of dorsal tubercles so conspicuous in T. maugei. Mr. Sowerby 

 was however very soon afterwards led from the just conclusion 

 he had arrived at by the aid of his own judgment, as Ferussac 

 in the same year remarks, 'Mr. Sowerby having discovered this 

 singular mollusk in England, has erroneously considered that 

 those he observed, differed from French specimens. The ex- 



