86 



BRITISH MOLLTJSKS. 



24. Helix pygmsea. Pigmy Helix. 



Shell ; minute, largely umbilicated, orbicularly convex, brownish 



horny, spire but Little exserted, whorls three to 



four, convex, narrow, smooth or finely striated ; 



aperture lunar, lip simple. 

 Helix minuta, Studer (1789), Faun. Helvet. in Coxe, Trav. 



Switz. vol. iii. p. 428 (without characters). 

 Helix pygmcea, Draparnaud (1801), Tabl. Moll. p. 93. 

 Helix Kirbii, Sheppard 1823), Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xiv. 



p. 162. 

 Discus pygmceus, Fitzinger (1833), Syst. Verz. p. 99. 

 Huryomphala pygmcea, Beck (1837), Ind. Moll. p. 9. 

 Patula pygmcea, Held (1837), Isis, p. 916. 

 Zonites pygmceus, Gray (1840), Turt. Man. p. 167. 

 Helix (DelompTialus) pygmcea, Moquin-Tandon (1855), Hist. Moll. vol. ii. 



p. 103. pi. x. f. 2 to 6. 

 Hab. Throughout Europe. Siberia. Azores. (Under stones, and among 



decaying leaves in moist woods, or among grass.) 



Conchologists are pretty well agreed upon this being a species 

 distinct from the preceding, but it has sometimes been taken for the 

 young of it. The shell of H. pygmcea is much smaller than that of 

 IT. rupestris, and composed of fewer whorls. The umbilicus is 

 rather variable, always large, however ; and the whorls being rather 

 more depressly convoluted, it is not so deeply perspective. The 

 animal is a dingy black, or grey freckled with black, extremely timid 

 and irritable, according to Moquin-Tandon, avoiding the light of 

 day and enclosing itself within its shell on the slightest touch. 

 " When this mollusk is contracted," he adds, " the upper tentacles 

 may be seen to be directed towards the umbilicus. The eyes are 

 as large as those of Pupa." 



Helix pygmcea is common in all parts of the British Isles, but 

 being very minute, the smallest of our Helices, may easily escape 

 notice. Dr. Turton's plan of collecting them, Mr. Jeffreys says, 

 was to get a quantity of dead and rather moist leaves and spread 

 them on a sheet of paper to dry, when the refuse yielded a good 

 harvest. Others collect them by brushing wet grass with an entomo- 

 logist's gauze net. 



