34 Moll 
MOLLUSCA. 
La Plata. 5 new species of marine shells by E. A. Smith, Ann. N. H. 
(5) vi. pp. 819-322. ^ 
Palaeontology of Recent Species. 
Those recent species of land shells which are remarkably variable, are 
not represented in the tertiary period ; the remarkably constant recent 
species are also ancient, existing as tertiary. Bottger, in Von Martens’s 
Conchol. Mitth. i. pp. 46 & 47. 
M. Neumayr discussss the relations of the tertiary to the recent Mol- 
lusca and proposes trinomial names for the former, as far as they can be 
proved to form continuous series : the term “ mutation ” is chosen for the 
members of such series, or historical variations. JB. mal. Ges. vii. 
pp. 201-222. 
Attention may here be directed to J. W. Dawson’s review of the Land 
Snails of the Palaeozoic Era, in which 3 species of Pupa, 1 Zonites 
{Conulus) and 1 peculiar genus, Dawsonella, from the Carboniferous 
period, and 1 terrestrial shell, Strophites grandceva, from the Devonian, 
are enumerated, of which two are new and all American. The European 
species of Palcoorhis are probably tubes of Annelids. Am. J. Sci. (3; xx. 
pp. 403-415. 
A considerable number of North American generic and subgeneric 
types of land and freshwater Mollusca, especially in the families Lim- 
nceidcB and Unionidce, and the genera Helix and Pupa, are found in the last 
Cretaceous and in Eocene deposits in the United States. C. A. White, 
Am. J. Sci. (3) XX. pp. 44-49 (two slight corrections, p. 158). Abstract 
in Ann. N. H. (5) vi. pp. 247-252. 
F. Sandberger enumerates 20 species from the Loss of the VaOey of 
the Main, including only 1 freshwater shell, Limncea truncatula (Miill.) ; 17 
of them still survive in the same country, several in somewhat different 
varieties ; they do not agree throughout with the shells, which are now 
every year found on the bank of the river after high water, as in the 
latter the proportion of aquatic species is considerably larger ; they indi- 
cate a somewhat different and decidedly poorer fauna, arctic or alpine. 
Verb. Ges. Wiirzb. (2) xiv. [1879] pp. 131-133. 
The same author’s paper {1. c.) on the glacial deposits near Wurzburg 
enumerates 20 species of terrestrial shells, of which Helix temdlabris, 
Pupa columella and parce-dentata are extinct, the rest still living in the 
same country. 
11 terrestrial and 6 freshwater species found in limestone-tufa near 
Pyrmont, of which Helix fruticum is no longer found living in the same 
district; Hesse, Mal. Bl. (2) ii. pp. 11-13. 
The subfossil land shells of the caves at Mentone are carefully dis- 
cussed by G. Nevill, who distinguishes 6 deposits, the less ancient of which 
are undoubtedly contemporaneous with man and Cervus elaphus, though 
most of them are older, very probably contemporaneous with the rhino- 
ceroses and tigers: a new genus ot A ciculidce (Renea), and several new 
species and varieties, are described from those older deposits. P. Z. S. 
I8h0, pp. 94-142. 
