SWANTON : THE MOLLUSCA Of WILTSHIRE. 177 



var. cincta Taylor. — Banks of the Avon at Salisbury (E.W.S.); 

 Devizes (Miss Cunnington and Heginbothom). 



var. fuscescens Duchassaing. — Idmiston (W. L. W. Eyre) ; 

 Devizes (Miss Cunnington and Heginbothom). 



var. canigonensis Boubee. — Devizes (Heginbothom). 



var. conoidea Westerlund. — Devizes (Heginbothom). 



var. flavescens Moquin-Tandon. — Devizes (Heginbothom). 

 Helix aspersa Miiller. — Abundant everywhere. Cockerell wrote: 

 *' They are largely eaten by the people round Swindon under the 

 name of wall snails. I was assured by one who had eaten them that 

 they are very excellent. The same practice obtains in East Somerset, 

 where they are spoken of as ' wall fish.' " It was at one time thought 

 that this species may have been introduced into England by the 

 Romans, as it occurred in many Roman stations ; but of late years 

 several undoubted pre- Roman localities have been recorded, notably 

 kitchen middens one mile from the present sea-shore on the shores 

 of the Mersey, and at Harlyn Bay in Cornwall. Mr. J. W. Flower, 

 F.G.S., has commented upon the fact that it frequently occurs in British 

 barrows in Wilts. Three specimens were found about two feet below 

 the surface during the excavation of a Romano-British dyke, Shiftway 

 Coppice, near Rushmore, by General Pitt-Rivers, in November, 1882. 

 They were associated with H. pomatia and H. nemoralis, also flint 

 flakes, a spindle-whorl, pottery, and bones of domesticated mammals. 

 Six specimens were found during excavations at Rotherly in 1887. 

 Excavating at Bokerly Dyke, in 1888, General Pitt-Rivers found 183 

 oysters, three fragments of mussels, 109 H. aspersa, and 24 H. 

 nemoralis. " Bokerly Dyke, the present boundary-line between 

 Dorset and Wilts., is an entrenchment of high relief, nearly four 

 miles in length, running in a north-west and south-east direction, 

 across the old Roman road, which runs from Sarum to Badbury." — 

 (Pitt-Rivers). It is not far from Cranborne. Period Romano-British. 

 Occurring in such numbers, we may conclude H. aspersa was then 

 an article of food ; and it would seem that the practice of eating it 

 has lingered to the present day in Wilts, and East Somerset. 



var. exalbida Menke. — Around Devizes on both sides of the 

 Avon and Kennet Canal (Heginbothom). 



var. flammea Picard. — Devizes (Heginbothom); CoUingbourne 

 (Haslemere Museum Coll.). 



var. albo-fasciata Jeffreys. — Devizes (Heginbothom) ; Marl- 

 borough and Edington (E.W.S.). 



Helix pomatia Linne. — Very local and not abundant. Montagu 

 thought it was not indigenous, and believed with the older 

 conchologists that it was first introduced about the middle of the 



