5530 Mollusks. 



its efforts at escape were very slight. Before being opened I took a water-colour 

 drawing of it, half the size of life. — Id. 



Skenea tricarinata not a Species. — T am indebted to the kindness of J. Gwyn 

 Jeffreys, Esq., for permission to send to the ' Zoologist' the following extract from a 

 letter, the result of an examination kindly undertaken by him of the small Skenea 

 found by me at Falmouth, which I at first considered a new species, a short account 

 of which appeared in the ' Zoologist' (Zool. 5205) a few months since, and a careful 

 comparison of it with a specimen taken by himself in the Mediterranean, and also a 

 series of the ordinary form of Skenea rota taken by me in a living state at the Land's 

 End and other parts of the Cornish coast: — "The result of a careful comparison of 

 these specimens induces me to retain the opinion I at first formed, that your Skenea 

 tricarinata is only a variety of Skenea rota. Your species appears to differ from 

 S. rota in its somewhat smaller size, in the whorls being flatter and more angular (the 

 latter character being probably attributable to the greater prominence and distinctness 

 of the ridges), and in the transverse ribs being less marked and not so nodulose as in 

 the typical form. My specimens from the Mediterranean belong to this variety. All 

 the specimens have these spiral ridges, one of them encircling the periphery and 

 forming an obtuse keel, another on the upper side, and a third on the lower side in 

 the centre of each whorl. The .ridges are nearly equidistant from each other, and 

 their direction is marked by a fulvous band : this character has not, I believe, been 

 noticed by any one except yourself. I however give this opinion with some reserva- 

 tion, as I should have preferred to have an opportunity of comparing your specimens 

 with others which I have myself collected from various parts of the British and Irish 

 coasts; this unfortunately I cannot do at present, while I am divorced from my 

 cabinets."— W. Webster ; Upton Hall, Birkenhead, February 9, 1857. 



[On receiving Mr. Webster's specimens I submitted them to Mr. Hanley, who 

 instantly pronounced the same opinion, and intended to correspond with Mr. Webster 

 on the subject. — E. Newman.'] 



A Schoolboy's Amusement in Southeys Days : a neiv way of proving the Specific 

 difference of Helix nemoralis and H. hortensis. — I was greatly surprised to see a para- 

 graph in the 'Zoologist' (Zool. 5431) with the above heading, for I had imagined 

 that every schoolboy had played at " snail-fighting." I can answer for it, at any rate, 

 that the practice was not confined to Southey's days, but is still a very prevalent one. 

 The species I used to play with as a boy were mostly Helix nemoralis and H. hortensis, 

 the same as Southey saw used, and sometimes H. aspersa. There are many concho- 

 logists, however, even some of the best in England, who would learn a lesson by 

 playing at the same game. Let any of your readers who are, in my opinion, so mis- 

 taken as to espouse Forbes and Hanley's view, and consider Helix nemoralis and 

 H. hortensis to be one and the same species, take to " snail-fighting," and they will 

 find the error into which they had fallen ; they will find that, in this respect, " unity 

 is" not "strength," for that if they had thrown all the white-mouths away and kept 

 the black ones, they would have ridded themselves of all those soldiers who were only 

 " food for powder," and have kept a phalanx of invincible shell-guardsmen. I throw 

 down my glove, and challenge any conchologist who believes in the unity of these two 

 species to deadly combat, — my black-mouths (//. nemoralis) against his white-mouths 



