ASHFORD : ON BULIMUS ACUTUS VAR. BIZONA. II7 



A little east of the beacon which surmounts High Down 

 between Freshwater Bay and the Needles, is a grass-covered 

 depression close to the sea, formed by a local and partial 

 subsidence of the chalk cliff many years ago. Perhaps one or 

 two acres have given way, making a tiny valley sheltered from 

 the north-easters, but exposed to the meridian sun. In this 

 depression and the declivities leading to it — and so far as my 

 observation goes, noivheie else in this neighborhood — is a 

 thriving community of the variety bizona. Like the Red Indians 

 of the present day, the tribe occupies its own limited pasture 

 ground, and like them also probably had a more extended range 

 in the past. Perhaps we may carry the simile further and say 

 that the gradual extinction of the "coloured" population is due 

 to the encroachment of the "whites." In the invading whites, 

 however, the ornamented variety recognise their own "kith and 

 kin" as I have had opportunity of observing, and we may presume 

 their offspring is a compromise. Certain it is that among the 

 individuals may be noticed all grades of bizonity if I may use the 

 word. In most the upper band is broken into segments from 

 causes I have suggested in a previous paper, in others the upper 

 zone, which gives name to the variety, exists only on the later 

 whorls, as though the functional power of the colour glands 

 remained dormant during youth, in some cases there is merely a 

 trace of an obsolescent band. I'hese gradations constitute the 

 mulatto, quadroon and octoroon sections of Biilivius society, and 

 point to an approaching final issue — the elimination of this 

 varietal distinction. Pure bizona blood is already rare — perhaps 

 2 per milk may show it. Of several hundred individuals 

 examined, only one has the upper band entire from the apex. 

 One interesting example had three bands below the periphery and 

 one above. 



Unfortunately a foe more insidious than intermarriage is 



