20 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. I4, NO. I, JANUARY, I913. 



The species intermedins, i.e., intermediate, bears a name which says 

 nothing, for one is not told between what species it was considered 

 intermediate. The species hortensts, i.e., frequenting gardens, has 

 two varieties named by PoUonera, celtica and cottiana, as having been 

 first noticed in a Celtic region and in the Cottian Alps about Mt. 

 Cenis. Another variety is c<Brulea, i.e., blue. The species fasciatus 

 has a var. circumscriptus, i.e., trimmed round, perhaps in allusion 

 to the footsole being white, which, however, is characteristic of the 

 type, and not merely of the variety. 



The genus Geomalacus contains but one species, and the name 

 means in Greek the earth-mollusc. The specific name maculosus 

 means spotted. 



The family of Endodontida (having teeth within) has a jaw formed 

 of a series of quadrate plates. The genus Punctum gets its name 

 from its small size — a point, and its specific name pygfficsum denotes 

 also its small size. The Romans used Aristotle's Greek name of 

 Pygmcei for the dwarf tribes of Africa, of which he probably knew 

 more than discoverers of the nineteenth century imagined. 



Sphyradium, a name given by Agassiz, may be derived from 

 <T<f)vpa, a hammer, or from cr<^i;/oas, sheep's dung, but the connection 

 or similarity is not plain. Meditating, however, on the subject in a 

 sheep-pasture, 1 am inclined to adopt the latter derivation, since 

 sometimes aggregated pellets of sheep's dung are not unlike a very 

 much magnified Vertigo, with tumid whorls. Its specific name 

 edentulu?n denotes the absence of teeth. Its var. colionella is 

 lengthened, and so more columnar in shape. 



The genus Pyramidiila, i.e., pyramidal, contains in England only 

 rupestris, i.e., rock-loving. A more descriptive name than many, 

 although found also on stone walls, and in one case by me on a brick 

 wall in Sussex. Its var. trochoides is like a Trochus in shape. 



The sub-genus Gotiyodiscus indicates that it is like the sub-genus 

 Discus (disk-like), but the periphery of the whorls is angulated. 

 Roiundata = rounded. Its var. tiirtoni was so named by Fleming 

 in 1828, after Turton, who published his great Conchylia Insiilarum 

 Britannicarmn in 1822. The "monster" scalaris, i.e., whorls 

 mounting like a ladder. 



Next comes the great family of Helicidce. The genus Helicella 

 was so named by Ferussac in 1819, who probably used the diminutive 

 because most in this group are smaller than the true Helices. The 

 section Heliomaties, i.e., mad for the sun, indicates the habit of not 

 shrinking from the light and heat, while the old name for the genus 

 was Xerophila, i.e., loving dry things, since as food dry stalks, and 

 other dry things, such as printed matter, are often preferred to more 

 succulent vegetation. 



