LAND SNAILS. 
145 
stones, and at the roots of grass; but more fre¬ 
quently on dead leaves in woods and plantations. 
Moquin-Tandon, in bis “ Natural History of 
tbe Land and Fresh-water Mollusks of France/** 
writes of tbis pigmy, tbat it is timid and irri¬ 
table, avoids tbe bright sunlight, retires within 
its shell at the slightest touch; and that the 
first part of the body protruded from the shell 
is the hinder portion of the foot. 
Geological Distribution of Helix. —One 
of the most ancient of the Helices that has sur¬ 
vived through a long space of time—from the 
deposition of the Upper Eocene, at the close of 
which period in the Isle of Wight it became 
extinct—to the present day, is H. lahyrinthica; 
for it has been driven from the hemisphere in 
which it first appeared to North America, where 
it is now a widely-spread species. 
Of the living British species, the following 
are found fossilized in the Upper Tertiaries at 
Copford, Grays, &c., Essex — H. hortensis , H . 
nemoralis , II. arbustorum , II. hispida , II. con- 
cinna , II. pulchella , II. fusca , II. rufemeus, 
H. aculeata , H. lamella ta, H. sericea , H . lapi - 
cida , H. virgata, and H . rotundata, associated 
with H. fruticum , II. incarnata , and II. ruder at a, 
which, though distributed throughout Northern 
and Southern Europe, ceased to exist in Great 
Britain at the close of the period of the deposi- 
L 
