6i 

 CONCHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 



By LIONEL E. ADAMS, B.A. 



(Read before the Society, June 12th, 1912). 



To ANY one ambitious to collect land shells, especially Xerophiles, 

 in bulk, I can recommend Algeria and Tunis. As one wanders 

 among the scrub-covered sandhills along tlie coast, the booty need 

 only be limited by the means of transport. Grass, bushes, and tree 

 trunks are covered with shells, chiefly H. pisana, the general 

 whiteness of which gives a curious appearance to the landscape. 

 The. pisana were disappointing, being mostly of a dingy white colour 

 with faint nondescript bands, though here and there I found some 

 of the beautiful forms figured as Algerian in Taylor's "Monograph," 

 pt. 19, forms of var. rosaceo-albida Bourg. being especially common 

 throughout. 



Helix virga/a distributed throughout were mostly small and of 

 the single banded form. 



Helix acuta has here a habit of jestivating in masses on tree trunks 

 and bushes ; I never met with it far from the sea. 



H. caperata, which I only found at Bona and Tunis was not 

 common. 1 found all these species somewhat smaller, on the average, 

 than British specimens, and considerably more solid. 



Though I have often picked fine series of large Helix aspersa 

 and H. bredeana Debeaux in the markets of i\.lgiers and Oran, I 

 have never seen H. pisana exposed for sale on Algerian stalls as is 

 commonly the case in France, Sicily, &c., and I can only account 

 for its neglect by a people usually the reverse of fastidious, by 

 supposing that the sciub upon which it feeds renders it unfit for 

 human consumption.^ The markets at Constantine yielded a nice 

 series of H. aspersa s.v. maxima Taylor, and also of the self-coloured 

 bandless form, which is never as large, in Algeria, as that with 

 bands. Among the ruins of Timgad var. conoidea Pic. was pre- 

 dominant. 



At Biskra, among the scanty scrub at the edge of the Sahara, I 

 found a few small H. virgata, chiefly dead shells, that looked as if 

 they had been gnawed. It may be that the Jerboas, whose tracks 

 were abundant, feed upon them ; I saw no tracks of any other 

 animal at all likely to do so. Among a most interesting assort- 

 ment of desert plants at the famous sulphur spring near Biskra, 

 I found Lencocluoa candidissima Drap. in considerable numbers, a 

 few H. vermiculata and H. virgata. Dr. LongstafF, however, in his 



I J. W. Taylor, in " Monograph," pt. 19, p. 375, speaks of its being "regularly brought to 

 market." 



