BULI'MUS, the name of a very extensive genus of terrestrial Pul moniferous Illollusea. Lamarck arranges it under his Colimac6s, a family of Phytophagous or Plant-Eating Trachelipods, respiring air by means of lungs, and protected by a spiral shell which is more or less elongated, oval, oblong, or turrieulated, with an entire aperture longer than it is wide, and with a very unequal border, which is reflected in the adult. The eolumella is smooth, without any notch or truncation at the base, but with an inflexion in the middle at its point of junction with that part of the peristome which it contributes to form. De Blainvillo places it under the Limaeinea, his third family of Pulmo brandriata, whose organs of respiration are retiform, and line the cavity situated obliquely from left to right upon the origin of the back of the animal, communicating with the ambient air by means of a small rounded orifice in the right side of the border of the mantle. Some of the species were placed by Limmus under his genera Buller and Helix. Scopoli and Bruguieres began the reform, and Lamarck car ried it still further. But before we proceed, it may be necessary to say a word as to the origin of the term used to designate the genus. " We constantly hear," says Broderip, in the 4th volume of the Zoo logical Journal,' "among conehologists the question, what is the meaning of Bulimus t' The author of the article entitled Lamarck's Genera of Shells,' in the 15th volume of the 'Journal of Seienee,' thus derives the word hunger : what title this genus has to so strange a name we know not' It may not then be unac ceptable to give a plain statement of the origin of the word. Swainson observes (' ZooL Must,' vol. i., 'Be/intim Melastomus') that "the genus Bulimus was long ago formed by Seopoli, out of the heterogeneous mixture of shells thrown together in the Linurean genus Helix." Let us now turn to Scopoli's account of the source whence he derived the name. " Proprium," says Se6poli, "itaque ex his constituo, et duce celeberrimo Adansonio Bulimos voce, ut eo facilius adgnoscantur.
Solara testam nee animal inhabitans vidi, quod diversum esse h Limaee affirmat Adansonius." Deliciw,' &c., p. 67.) Now Adanson has no such genus as Bulimus, but he has such a genus as Bulimia. At plate 1, fig. G 2, in his Natural History of Senegal,' will be found Le Bulin, Bulinus, but the letters 'n' and 'u' are so confusedly engraven, that at first sight the word looks like Bulimus. In the text (p. 5), the word is printed Bulinne very plainly ; but neither Scopoli nor any of his successors appear to have noticed it. Till the time of Lamarck, who confined the genus (still calling it Bulimus, after Sco poli and Bruguieres) to the land-shells with a reflected lip, which now range under it, many land and fresh-water shells which have not a reflected lip, such as dchatintr, Physce, Limncem, and Suceinem, were also congregated under the name of Bulimus. The Bulinss of Aden eon was a fresh-water shell, apparently a Physa or Limner." The shell is never orbicular, as in the Helices, but of the shape noticed at the commencement of the article. The last whorl is always larger than the penultimate, and indeed as a general rule may be stated to be larger than all the others put together. The mouth or opening is an oval oblong, and the border is disunited. The adult reflected lip or border on the right aide is generally very thick, but this reflec tion is sometimes absent. The animal is very like that of Helix ; De Blainville says entirely so--" toute-h-fait semblable." The head is furnished with four tentacula or horns, the two largest of which are terminated by the so-called eyes. There is no true operculum. Tho geographical distribution of the genus is very general, and there is scarcely a part of the world where the form does not occur. The great development of it takes place in the warmer climates, where some of the species are very large.