British Conchology, or an Account of the Mollusca Which Now Inhabit the British Isles and the Surrounding Seas Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 Excerpt: ... the character of being a slow, irritable, and very greedy animal--none of which are amiable qualities in our own species Owing to the nature of its habitat, the shell is apt to have a coat of hardened mud. The whorls are sometimes more or less distorted or scalariform. Draparnaud says that the animal has only two aeriferous tubes, instead of four as in L. auricularia; but this remarkable and anomalous organization does not appear to have been observed by other naturalists. This species differs from all the preceding in the shell being thicker and the whorls much more narrow. It was first (and well) described by Lister. Mr. Bean was kind enough to give me specimens of L. cornea (a native of the North-American lakes) which his son was said to have collected in the West of Ireland. It is allied to the present species, through the variety tincta; but I suspect there must have been some mistake as to the alleged Irish locality. 7. L. Trunca'tula, Miiller. Buccinum truncaiidum, Mull. Verm. Hist. pt.ii. p. 130. Limnaus truncatulus, F. 4. H. It. p. 177, pi. csjiv. f. 3. Body dark brown or grey, of a lighter colour on the lower side, covered with fine black specks: tentacles short, but slender, rounded at their tips: eyes nearly sessile: foot rather short, marked with milk-white spots, which are scattered and larger than the black specks, nearly truncate in front, gradually narrowing and abruptly rounded behind. Shell oblong-conic, turreted, rather solid for its size, glossy, yellowish-brown or horncolour; sculpture the same as in the two last species: epidermis thin: whorls 5--6, rounded and convex, but compressed in the middle, so as to make the top of each appear somewhat truncate; the last whorl occupying about three-fifths of the shell: spire abruptly taperin...