344 PROCEEDINGS OE THE JIALACOLOGICAL SOCIEXr. 



me to search more closely, and I found that moesta lives under heaps 

 of stones, not attempting to climb a single inch up the cliff, but 

 preferring to hide itself, sometimes as much as a foot deep, beneath 

 piles of debris. Here it feeds on decaying vegetation, and I came 

 across dozens of living individuals simply by clearing away the heaps 

 of stones. 



Quite by chance another fine species, Medlycolti, Tiist., was lighted 

 on. Driving from Sidon to Beirut, we stopped at a wayside inn for 

 refreshment. The place looked most unpromising — plouglied fields in 

 every direction. At the last moment I saw some rocks sticking «p 

 two or three fields off, and on the shady side of these, feeding singly 

 on the moss and greenish slime on the surface of the limestone, 

 CI. Medlycotti occurred in some abundance. Tristram's original 

 locality was further south, the hills beliind Sarepta. But some miles 

 nearer Sidon, in the bay where, as local tradition relates, the whale 

 vomited up Jonah, a most beautiful and well-marked variety occurred, 

 very slender, with a much produced spire, and narrow and more 

 flattened lamellae. This form was found feeding on a large black, 

 moist lichen, which grew in the hollows of shady rocks, and I never 

 found it anywhere else. If, as seems probable, the vai'iety is new, 

 I should like to associate it with the name of the prophet, and call it 

 CI. Medlycotti, Trist., var. Jonasi. 



Beirut is a large town of about 120,000 inhabitants, and it fairly 

 surprised me to find a Clausilia tolerably abundant on street walls in 

 the centre of Beirut. This species is variously named in Dr. j^orman's 

 collection, now in the British Museum, as Delesserti, Bgt., Irunnea, 

 Zgl., vesicalis, Friv., nnd fauciata. Parr. It lodges in the interatices 

 of stone walls which face north and west, feeding on moss, and 

 I found it fairly plentiful in exactly similar situations at Sidon, but 

 no trace of it on the rocks in the open. 



I will only conclude by saying that I feel confident that close 

 observation of the habits and mode of life of many land shells, in 

 relation to their food and choice of habitat, will be found productive 

 of interesting and possibly valuable results. 



