FAMILY COLIMACEA. 



65 



Hab. Throughout Europe. United States. (In gardens, woods, and fields, 

 also on marine sand-hills, and among chalk cliffs and quarries.) 



Of all our land-shells, this is the most gaily painted and tropical- 

 looking. In the New World there is no species of Helix so brightly- 

 coloured within many degrees of the same isothermal latitude. The 

 animal is mostly of an olivaceous yellow, the shell mostly of a pale 

 yellow often inclining to red, and it is generally banded with cho- 

 colate brown. The name nemoralis has been restricted to varieties 

 with dark-stained lips, hortensis to those with white lips, and 

 hybrida to intermediate varieties ; but the varieties are endless. 

 M. Moquin-Tandon has given names to seventy-seven varieties of 

 the dark-lipped specimens, and to forty-six of the white-lipped, 

 and he adds some amusing details of the contents of a basket of 

 them bought in the market of Toulouse. Out of 1468 specimens 

 he found 684 marked with distinct bands, 39 in which the bands 

 were more or less broken up, and 745 without bands. C. Pfeiffer 

 indicates 67 varieties of the species ; and one author, M. Albin Gras, 

 has gone so far as to enumerate 198 varieties of the dark -lipped spe- 

 cimens alone. In France, where this snail is sold as an article of 

 food, collectors have ready opportunities of indulging their fancy 

 for arranging and naming varieties. Some specimens, however, 

 change the character of their painting during growth. In the 

 early whorls the bands will be separate, while at maturity they 

 become united; and the describer is fairly baffled in his attempt 

 to name them. 



H. nemoralis inhabits Europe throtighout, but it is less common 

 in the south. It has been transported to the United States, and 

 keeps to the eastern parts near the sea, especially the lower extrer 

 mity of Cape Cod and Cape Aun. Mr. Binney remarks that in the 

 neighbouring islands, " each island is inhabited by a variety pecu- 

 liar to itself, showing that the variety which happened to be intro- 

 duced there, has propagated itself, without a tendency to run into 

 other variations." " Thus, on one islet," he adds, " we have the yel- 

 lowish-green unicoloured variety, once described as H. subglobosa, 

 and on another, within a very short distance, we find a banded 

 variety, and none others." 



The reticulated wrinkling of the surface of the shell of H, nemo* 

 ralis, is a character that comes with age. As the growth of the 

 whorls matures, the arcuated striae become obscure, and give place 

 to the sculpture expressed by the term 'corrugately malleated.' 



