The Pyramid Snails

The Painted Snail (P. picta, Born.), one of the most gaily dressed of land snails, lives in trees. Individuals are quite different in colouring; this accounts for the large number of named varieties. The ground colour has its beauty heightened by narrow stripes of darker, contrasting colours, that outline the sutures and the outer lip. There are yellow shells ornamented with a scarlet spiral thread; chestnut brown with white bands; dark blue with white-edged black bands, and salmon red, similarly trimmed. The large, half-moon shaped aperture shows a violet or white interior. The simple lip is thickened within.

What a sight to see these gay little mollusks slipping about 265 North American Land Snails among the tree branches which are their homes! They harmonise with the brilliant tropical vegetation. Diameter, I inch. Habitat.— Cuba.

Genus SAGDA, Beck The Tied Helix (H. alligans, Ads.), is thimble-shaped, with a concave, depressed base and blunt apex. Whorls eight to ten, flattened, the last one faintly keeled. The lines of growth show as faint, diagonal stria;. The white shells are invested with a yellowish horny epidermis. The aperture is semi-lunar; lip thin, sharp. Umbilicus wanting. Height and width, I inch.

Habitat.— Jamaica.

Genus POLYGYRELLA, Binney Shell a flat spiral, with wide umbilicus; coils seven to eight, cross-ribbed above; glassy, shining, yellowish, horn-colour; lip not expanded, thickened at edge by white rim, and armed with two or three teeth; columella bears triangular tooth.

The single species, P. polygyrella, Bland and Cooper, inch in diameter, lives in the spruce forests of the Cceur d'Alene Mountains in Idaho.

Genus PLEURODONTE, Fisch. (CAROCOLUS, Montf.) Shell large, solid, more or less flattened; whorls four to six, rounded or keeled; lip flaring or reflexed, generally toothed. Eggs large, oval, hard-shelled; foot undivided, sides granular; mantle edge frilled.

A tropical American genus of large ground snails whose nearest relatives inhabit China, the East Indies and Australia. The genus exhibits a great variety of forms.

The Wavy Pleurodonte (P. sinuata, MiiI) has its door way narrow and guarded by white teeth or wide and smooth rimmed. The variation in form is from a top-shaped cone to a lens with keeled rim. There is also a wide-mouthed nerite form. Brown banded with yellow, white, wound with yellow, and unbanded shells, from chocolate to cream, indicate the range 266 North American Land Snails of colour. The young have shells of two and one-half whorls

before hatching. Diameter, I to 2 inches.

Habitat.— Jamaica.

P. gigantea,

Scop., is thick, brown. obliquely streaked, with a white lip thickened and expanded. Diameter, 2 to 2i inches.

Habitat.— Haiti.

P. Jamaicensis,

Chernn., has the nerite form, bright chestnut with pale bands, and a very thick, broad, white rim overlying the columella and outer lip. Diameter, 2 inches.

Habitat.— Jamaica.

Genus CEPOLIS, Montf.

Shell depressed, globular, smooth, umbilicate or not; lip reflexed at columella, usually thickened with callus, sometimes toothed, one-coloured or conspicuously banded; jaw high, arched; radula long.

C. cepa, Mull.,

has afinger-like fold of callus within the mouth, and another on the anterior margin bearing a tooth. The pale chestnut ground is banded above by spiral lines of brown. This ground snail, 1 to 11 inches in diameter, is quite dull beside the arboreal species, which are gaily coloured in both body and shell.

Habitat.— West Indies.

Genus LYSINOE, H. and A. Ads.

Shell depressed, globose, granulated or hairy; brown with spiral bands; aperture lunate; lips somewhat reflexed; body very large, coarsely granular above, tail keeled. Three species.

L. Humboldtiana,

Fer., with an elevated spire and three dark bands, is a Texan species. Diameter, 1 to 2 inches. The type, however, of the genus is the larger, more flattened L. Ghies breghti, Nyst., with more elaborate banding — a symphony in brown — which inhabits Central America.

Genus EPIPHRAGMOPHORA, Doring (AGLAIA and ARIONTA of American authors) Shell discoidal to globose, four to seven whorls, rarely keeled; horny to chalky; variegated and banded; lip thin, expanded or 267 North American Land Snails reflexed, epiphragm secreted by certain species, but not a constant character. A large genus distributed on the Pacific slopes of America.

The Faithful Snail (E. fidelis, Gray) has a low cone with rounded, smooth whorls banded with brown. Basal area of body whorl dark brown to black. The umbilicus is open, but contracted at the top by the flaring of the lip. Epidermis yellowish. Dia meter, l to i inches. Late broods are often found tucked away in holes in the trunks of maple trees, far above the ground.