74 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



this is done as it ought to be done, we may know something 

 about the extent of specific variation possible in our land 

 shells, hardly so well understood now as it ought to be. I am 

 ready to contribute hundreds of specimens to the expert who 

 will undertake the labor. 



41. Z. cuspidal us Lewis. Typical examples of this form 

 are found here. They are not so common, however, as most 

 of the other varieties of the gularis group. The best types of 

 the species (?) that I have seen were collected by myself and 

 son fifty miles south of here in McDowell County, this State. 

 Strange to say, no other forms of the group above mentioned 

 occurred. Taken by themselves they might well be consid- 

 ered as a distinct species. But when hundreds of shells of 

 intermediate forms are brought together, as we have them, 

 the student can not say where a species begins or where it 

 ends. The Goniobases of the Coosa River present no more 

 intricate problem. It is safest to write all there is of this 

 form under gularis and its varieties. 



42. Z. andrewsi W, G. Binn. This beautiful shell occurs 

 here in the leaves of the damper portion of the forest, 

 together with radiatulus, gularis, fulvus et al. Some of the 

 smaller specimens seem to have affinities with sig?iificans ; 

 others with multidentatus which occurs here with it. A good 

 deal has been written about the "absorption of the denticles" 

 in aged specimens of this and allied species, most of which is 

 ill-advised and not in accordance with facts. 



The exterior sculpture of findrewsi is much like that of 

 placentulus > but no student of the two species need confound 

 them. They are sufficiently distinct if the true placentulus is 

 under consideration. In Pruitt's Gap of the Roan we found 

 a rose-tinted variety of this species, of more than the usual 

 size, which was, I believe, the most exquisite small land shell 

 that I have ever seen. There is the same need of a thorough 

 comparative study of andrewsi, significans and multidentatus 

 that there is of gularis and its allies. With them should be 

 considered placentulus and capsellus, which some writers have 

 seemed to find it difficult to separate from these. This study 

 can only be made by an expert who has hundreds of examples 

 from the entire range of the species. 



