OVULA. 



Lam,- — Syst. des Anim. sans vertebr. p. 72. 



TESTA ovata, gibbosa^ spira occulta. Apertura 

 longitudinalis, elongata^ supra coarctata^ subtus 

 expansa, apice hasique emarginatis et in canal es 



* plus minusve productis^ Lahio interno edentulo^ 

 externo involuto^ interdum denticulate. 



It is well known that the Linnean Genus Bulla consists of 

 an assemblage of shells of the most various characters, 

 and seems rather to have been formed by adding together the 

 rejectamenta from other Genera, than from the considera- 

 tion of their possessing any characters in common with each 

 other, if we except that of their general gibbosity. The 

 Ovulce, for instance, whose characters bring them so much 

 nearer to the C?/prcea, that they might have been added 

 to them without doing half so much violence to nature, 

 grouped with shells which have only a single canal, such as 

 the Pj/ruice, with others which have no canal at all, such 

 as the Bulimi, and Achatinm, with some which are capable of 

 containing entirely their animal inhabitant, and with others 

 which are as entirely inclosed in the mantle of the animal, 

 in fine we find the Ovulae, which are marine, grouped by 

 Linne, with both land and fresh-water shells, as with the 

 Bulimi and PhyscE, It was difficult to avoid this extreme 

 of jumbling together shells of such diverse characters, with- 

 out running into another extreme of constituting a Genus 

 for almost every species which Lamarck included under his 

 Ovula ; this is what Montfort has done, whose Genera 

 Radius, Ovulus, Calpurnus and Ultimus, are only so many 

 dismemberments of Lamarck's Ovula. In order that this 

 subject might be placed in a clear point of view before out' 

 readers, we have thought it advisable to give two plates, 



