Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos (Vol. 2 of 2): During the Years 1858, 1859, and 1860Mouhot, Henri
History
Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos (Vol. 2 of 2): During the Years 1858, 1859, and 1860
Mouhot, Henri
Cambodia -- Description and travel; Khmer language; Natural history -- Indochina; Thailand -- Description and travel
Out of two thousand species of _Helix_ at present known, the only
one of the same type as _H. Mouhoti_ is the large _H. Brookei_,
collected by Mr. Arthur Adams, in company with Sir Edward Belcher, on
the mountains of Borneo, during the voyage of the ‘Samarang,’ and
described by Mr. Arthur Adams in the ‘Zoology’ of that expedition.
_H. Mouhoti_, of which Mr. Stevens has received a few specimens in
various stages of growth, is even larger and more inflated than _H.
Brookei_. In adult specimens the last whorl measures 6-1/2 inches in
circumference, 3 inches in diameter, and the shell is about 2 inches
high. It differs from _H. Brookei_ in being conspicuously, but not
broadly, umbilicated, and in the mature lip not being in the least
degree reflected at the margin. The lip itself (not the margin) is
reflected at its junction with the body-whorl, partly round the
umbilicus, as in the _Nanina_ form of the genus. But the most striking
feature of the species is the colouring. In _H. Brookei_ the lower half
of the whorls is of a uniform dark chestnut-colour; in _H. Mouhoti_
it is pure white, turned to a bright straw colour by the overlying of
a shining horny epidermis, encircled immediately below the periphery
by a broad, rich, purple-black band, somewhat like the bands of the
large Philippine _Bulimus Reevei_, but even broader and more defined
on the white ground. The region of the umbilicus is also deeply and
as definitely stained with the same purple-black colour. As in _H.
Brookei_, all the specimens of _H. Mouhoti_ are sinistral, or what is
more commonly called reversed.
_Bulimus cambojiensis._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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