SS > SS SN we SN . SS NE WS SS > Se SN LRA WS » SS Re C ‘ S Se ASS SS SN aN \ SS .\ > . SS SS . SS SS Se AN ~ ST WSN LA WS SSS SSS RES SSR AS SAN SRS Saw. | S RV VAAy WH SAS SA RQ . SS . . ik a * ty" Wa ° li \ AC wren a" FS Ries Oe at og OE i n iM tH ) a, Dy vi Ny n t oe; 5 tj ™ Tah Ary le i a Y = AG h HAA { Smithsonian Institution ~fibra ries ie Vey i Zoe — YU yy Up Uj YY Y“ Zé SS \ \ XS N \ S ~ S Alexander Wetmore 1946 pee es | THE MOUSE IN THE BIRD'S NEST. Fo £2. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING, Glimpses of American Natnral History Py. ft RN EST INGERSOLL ILLUSTRATED Nature is an admirable school - mistress. —THoREau SONIA CieRARIES NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS. FRANKLIN SQUARE | Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All rights reserved. CONTENTS: Tuer author gladly acknowledges his obligations to the publishers of the periodicals named below, for courteously permitting him to reprint these essays from their pages, as follows: PAGE PMMA TEER rie c's ales dels «(24,24 rs «sie see os» -SCriOners Monthly, - 9 = ( Appletons’ Journal. ) BRU MEOLEY arcu c¥a oie en avn c/a. afe ai'ens'e «16 aeverdee lene oi alos 36 t Lippincott’s Magazine. RETIN ee ee ree oy cs, ois wns 'ohn es, cdl RESO RE 3 Se ea St. Nicholas, 57 PNP ORNITHOLOGICAT): LECTURE... os eccees cde reves. Seribner’s Monthly. 85 I ENIETE GS SEETIS ofa Oo 8, 3 ogo a al esdini os ons 2 oob.0 oea Appletons’ Journal. 106 PEM SUEKALO AND HIS WATE... 1. . 602s 2. es ws Popular Science Monthly. 140 _ HIDCTSUINEES 12/14) BI ne The Field (London). 171 BSDSERIZUNG? ENNTUENCES) «2/6 icc <0 oa'ee'e bode we Nelew ed 8 Sunday Afternoon. 182 MN VMETRIRUATSS GUT OMI. 5s odie. sik ors «0/0 Geis Slee es Scribner's Monthly. 199 ee ADSTUMMUULE CE EINGIO | coas dic aceidiwia oh bess oad a sae Harper's Magazine, 222 RES ATROWS cps. ct «ches 0 6, «ene woh o's «0 's\ 9 0's oats Popular Science Monthly. 241 shy ye Sane per ta sh ys ‘=> i a ee " 7 Bx Sw vt it oe PLEUSTIRATLIONS. Tre Mouse IN THE Birp’s NEst......... Geet tar Mee Butiwus, CycLostoMa, AND OTHER TROPICAL SNAILS... . ANATOMY OF THE CoMMON WHITE-LIPPED HELIX...... Tome APPHE-SNAIL, AND: IES EGGS... 3.02. 655 oe ee ee Tue ComL-SHELL (PLANORBIS) AND A LIMNEA.......... PoaeUNDER. SIDE OF A Wri. CHIP... 3% %..00e 6. oe. THe SNAILS OF THE TORRENTS......... Servet Soe PUMP SNATEN 6. sect oveica evicsate ce a san 0% Mat. > Bey. ines ctr ELUMBLE CIRCUMSTANCES: © ce .clcccec sce 0 e ceeteee sees oe ee ININGBAUEDEING ING THE ORLEAR 5 60s ace d bcc cscs deve ee sess LQTS ee ae A es loves Tue HOUSE-MOUSE........ Hee E re Bose RN on eH ete THE JUMPING-MOUSE (JACULUS)...........-2 0-20 cee PAGE oe ere ee eooere ee eee = allele, Crd . a, ee) oe be) ag @a) e) © ° eee eos oes eoceseeree ae oe . ° . oe erseeose ee see ee oe ec ee ee ore @ . ee Mar ARCMANURL EEE HCO MEU LGV US ETc -o'e sires. a oS de Sater ooo bale. aelm See. ol wr share oie) adi eho 8ele nes P HW OUSH ANDe THE OVSTOR. 65... sce ace see fa MWAVING » HOME, 0.3 )s ec wa bce es Shi Poe EG Hic UIA CER RECTOR Aaa SEMI WALT He ME SNIAKWE) 5 os, cote ces) cae cae ecerere RMN GHo RHE, EURRON, .:/2t2-.5 a0. caiccs Gras eds eee PRED MIGUNGHISHIED 5 oo jou « soo nnelecansiacel dias Ole dete. « RE Ps ee ere Sy edge ae RNG MEE: OWCBERIG: oa. cra! s-«' deal uae. « oo ataten bohee cle od) sta, eis YELLOW-BREASTED CHATS...........-3. Sl ee EGE Cee Eee sass ca, PONE MORNING, ..:<00%.e'e.0 lacie ss 0 Pent 25,0 os, ogi Nm hoe cet a ee ar ELUMAENG-RIRD SINESD: Sc oc's cs bietsu cw Sols ele sce 0 eee SON YaRAGEE Ce AEST De eneeee ne MS, icy case aera aire od Soa etemereo sneceeelebeleefas ead 6 ... Mrontispiece 11 14. 16 ay 18 19 24. 26 28 40 58 61 67 70 15 78 86 87 89 92, 95 97 98 5 ILLUSTRATIONS. HUAISEIES SO thesia ta oe kos ole Tore te eee Ee ee ce pee oe eee THE PLOVER.» osc ohne sos bed eee 101 Br OW OOD-PE WEEN 5.5. S33. bs db anes oe ee tee ee eee ee Pee eee 103 RORKEY-BUZZARBDS. <345 os %sss ea teele sc steers oe BCR Risa Boe! dicta St eR ee 104 SMOWGBUNTING (0's s< 6 os hoe eee Bain, Sante Manes OOS Oe ie Renee ee 109 IBBOWN JOREEPERS. net eeen tee bes es ae. abe teee SO eo uae” 5 pe peati. water CARDINAE-GROSSBEAK -5 Os Tete WV IP Eke. ate sien air oie Se eile Seca S Beene none ot eae A YELLOW-BIRD IN WINTER DRESS.........-..-. UD fake, Sees ea oe eee ee REO RINNE Acs 5 ot Ob Le ae a i eee eek ee re gt One as aR oan cea: peer BPSERED aN VAR WVLUING cee Jo 0 tare ate ae sere pats Bus ae eee tee Pt Te aoe eee ae . 1380 PSEA Bis 3. obpecee MEERA RA ae Be Bot Ae eS SES Dh hate eee 139 A MOTHER AND CHILDMOF “PHE Ue LAING = se. ances clos s waedeeeiates shine Ae ate lee: De A ETANG \G EROS Occ: ce se cue = eas or teehee eee sere ES oe eNO tat 282 37 SHE WIGNAL——DUFEALO ELERD IN, (OIGHT'.\.).%.505c se wlade ete eee oe ee eee Inprans KitLtinc BUFFALOES ON THE Upper MISSOURI.......... ie) Abe (A: FIGHT 2AGAINST Farms. 2. os Sk det Bat ATI AR SMe eee ys eee SEARS ES a) Sie SC ge A RR RE EN SAY AE ce Be ee oe BRO GN “FOR ‘THE “BOYS “BUT Jari ees BW ls oe Sa ee eee 243 A Narrow ESvAPE......... ESAS sR i pie) AN Se ea Bas eee FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. i be HONG AC’ SNA LE len, Two-ruirps of the persons to whom I show the little land and fresh-water mollusks in my snailery either start !’ which causes me back with an “Oh! the horrid things some amusement, or else gaze straight out of the window, . ° = ¢ a . - e 39 ° . - saying languidly, “ How interesting!’ which hurts my pride. I confess, therefore, that it is contrary to experi- ence to attempt to interest general readers with an ac- count of “Ye little snails, with slippery tails, Who noiselessly travel across my gravel.” Yet why not? Snails are of vast multitude and variety, ancient race, graceful form, dignified manners, industrious habits and gustatory excellence ; quod est demonstrandum. Snails differ from.other gasteropodous mollusks chiefly 10 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. in that they are provided with lungs, and thereby are fitted to live in air‘ instead of water. Hence all true snails are terrestrial. As the snail crawls upon a cabbage-leaf, all that you can see of the body is the square head bearing two long and two short horns, with the muscular base ta- pering behind. There is an oily skin, and on the back is _ borne a shell containing the rest of the body, twisted up in its spiral chamber. Extending along the whole under sur- face of the body is the tough corrugated disk upon which the animal creeps. This foot is the last part of the body to be withdrawn into the shell, and to its end, in a large divi- sion of pulmonate as well as marine mollusks, is attached a little horny valve which just fits the aperture of the shell and completely stops it up when the animal is within. This is called the operculum. The foot secretes a viscid fluid which greatly facilitates exertion by lubricating the path, and snails may often be traced to their hiding-places by a silvery trail of dried slime. So tenacious is this exudation that some species can hang in mid-air by spinning out a mucous thread ; but, unlike the spider, have not the power to retrace their way by reeling in the gossamer cable. The slime also serves the naked species as a protection, birds and animals disliking the sticky, disgusting fluid; and it serves others as a weapon, seeming to benumb whatever BULIMUS, CYOLOSTOMA, AND OTHER TROPIOAL SNATLS, IN A SNAILERY. 13 small creature it touches. The oleacina, of Cuba, thus fre- quently is able to feed upon mollusks of twice its strength. The snail possesses an elaborate anatomy for the per- formance of all the functions of digestion, respiration, cir- culation, and reproduction. A collar of nervous matter encircles the throat, whence two trunks carry nerves throughout the body, and filaments pass forward to the “horns,” the longer and superior pair of which end in minute eyes and are called “eye-stalks,” while the shorter pair are only tactile organs, and hence “feelers.” These tentacles are as expressive as a mule’s ears, giving an ap- pearance of listless enjoyment when they hang down, and an immense alertness if they are rigid, as happens when the snail is on a march. ‘The eyes are of little real use, being excelled for service by the senses of smell and taste, and it is doubtful whether the nerves generally are very sensitive, since a slug will be eaten without manifesting pain. It is not surprising, perhaps, to find great tenacity of life in so lowly an animal; but Spallanzani, whose experiments with bats are celebrated, was the first to ascertain that not only parts of the head, but even the whole head might be reproduced, although not always. The shell is easily and frequently repaired, albeit hastily and not with the fine workmanship of the original. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 14 “YINOU *y + {199} JO SMOA ITM POIaAod ddVJANS oN} SUIMOYS onS04 ‘9 t Ave ‘g ‘ MOIA-dPIs oles ‘p } poytusei A[ysty yaa} ‘g $Y091 Jo Mod a[qnop ¥ ‘SZ sy NOU “wW—yooy Y/—s¥H[v}s-a40 ‘q Q—sofko ‘yD YD *T “NIV GEddIT-ALINM NOWNOO AHL JO XNOLVNV g WANN GRA ST GAA VIQAAVK AG EQ YG UPANSN ARS AQAAATT VUSAG FQ QGG NN RN \ oPe CLEPPPCPI PZ > PCr J PPOVLPPWTIDL A504 4 PAP dy 2 poppe see Dey aseeoe ThE JS AaQg \ AQ Ug ppe eo 0 ? IN A SNAILERY. 15 The pulmonates unite both sexes in one individual, but it requires the mutual union of two individuals to fertilize the eggs. The eggs are laid in May or June, when large numbers of snails gather in sunny places. When about to lay, the snail burrows into damp soil or decaying leaves, underneath a log, or in some other spot sheltered from the sun’s rays, and there drops a cluster of thirty to fifty eggs looking like homeopathic pills. Three or four such de- posits are made, and abandoned. This is the ordinary method of the genus helix, but some of the land and all the pond-snails present variations. The ova of slugs are attached by the ends in strings, like a rosary, and many de- posits are made during the year. Bulimus and other South American genera isolate each egg, which in the case of some of the largest species is as big as a pigeon’s. Vitrina and succinea glue them in masses upon stones and the stems of plants, while the tropical bulimi cement the leaves of trees together to form nests for their progeny. The pond-snails hang little globules of transparent gelatine containing a few eggs, or otherwise secure their fry to wet stones, floating chips, and the leaves of aquatic plants. In neritina, a brack- ish water inhabitant, the ova, immediately upon being laid, become attached to the surface of the parent’s shell, and when the embryo hatches each egg splits about the middle, 16 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. the upper part lifting off like a lid. Lastly, the egos of the stout paludinee of our THE APPLE-SNAIL, AND ITS EGGS. western lakes and rivers are’not laid at all, but the embryos hatch out in the oviduct. Under the microscope the translucent egg-envelopes pre- sent a beautiful appearance, being studded with glistening. erystals of lime, so that the infant within seems to wear a IN A SNAILERY. AEF gown embroidered with diamonds. Ordinarily the young snail gnaws his way out in about twenty or thirty days af- ter the laying of the egg; but eggs laid in the autumn often remain unchanged until spring; and, indeed, may keep many years if they remain cool or dry. The vitality of snails’ eggs almost passes belief. They have been so THE OOIL-SHELL (PLANOBBIS) AND A LIMNEA. completely dried as to be friable between the fingers, and desiccated in a furnace until reduced to almost invisible minuteness, yet always have regained their original bulk upon exposure to damp, and the young have been devel- oped with the same success as from eggs not handled. More or less wholly dependent on moisture, the young 2 18 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. snails at once seek out their habitual solitary retreats, and must be looked for under leaves, logs, and loose stones in THE UNDER SIDE OF A WEY CAlIP. the woods and pastures; at the roots of fern-tufts, lurk- ing in the moss beside mountain brooklets; hiding in the crevices of rocky banks and old walls, crawling over the mud at the edge of swampy pools, creeping in and out of the crannies of bark on aged trees, or clinging to the under side of the leaves. Some forms are so minute that they would not hide the letter o in this print, yet you will soon come to perceive them amid the grains of mnd adhering to the lower side of a soaked chip. For fresh-water species, various resorts are to be searched. Go to the torrents with rocky bottoms for the paludinas IN A SNAILERY. 19 and periwinkles (Melania); to quiet brooks for physas and coil-shells; for limneas to the reeking swamps and stag- nant pools in the wet ooze. I know no better place in the world for pond-snails than the tule marshes of the Pacific slope, where hundreds of the great graceful Limnea stag- nalis lie among the rotting vegetation, or float upside down at the surface of the still water. But some of the fresh- water mollusks remain most of the time at the bottom, com- ing to the surface only to breathe now and then; and to get their shells it is necessary to use a sieve-bottomed dipper, or THE SNALLS OF THE TORRENTS. some sort of dredge. When the water becomes low they bury themselves in the mud; it is therefore always profit- 20) FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. able, late in the summer, to rake ont the bottom of mud- holes where the water has entirely disappeared. Another | plan is gently to pull up the water-weeds by the roots, and cleanse them in a basin of water. You will thus secure many very small species. Experience will quickly teach the collector where he may expect to find this and that kind, and that some caution and much sharpness of obser- vation are necessary, since some species by their naturally dead tints, and others by a coating of mud, assimilate them- selves so nearly to their surroundings as easily to be over- looked by man as well as other enemies. The shell is increased rapidly for the first two or three years, and the delicate lines of increment, parallel with the outlines of the aperture, are readily visible on all the larger specimens. Various other signs indicate youth or adult age in the shell. Mollusks prosper best, ceteris paribus, in a broken land- scape, with plenty of lime in the soil. The reason, no doubt, why the West India Islands, the Cumberland Mountains, and similar regions are so peculiarly rich in shells of every sort, is that a ravine-cut surface and a wide area of lime- stone rocks. characterize those districts; on the other hand, it is not surprising that I found nine-tenths of the Rocky Mountain species to be minute, since the geology is repre- IN A‘SNAILERY. Y1 sented by sandstone and volcanic rocks.* Hof springs are very likely to be inhabited by mollusks, even when the tem- perature exceeds 100° Fahr., and the waters are very strong- ly impregnated with mineral salts. Snails are mainly vegetarians, and all their mouth-parts and digestive organs are fitted for this diet. Just beneath the lower tentacles is the mouth, having on the upper lip a crescent-shaped jaw of horny texture, with a knife-like, or sometimes saw-like, cutting-edge. The lower lip has noth- ing of this kind, but in precisely the same attitude as our tongue is arranged a lingual membrane, long, narrow and cartilaginous, which may be brought up against the cutting- edge of the upper jaw. This “tongue” is studded with rows of infinitesimal silicious “teeth,” 11,000 of which are possessed by our common white-lipped helix, although its ribbon is not a quarter of an inch long. All these sharp denticles point backward, so that the tongue acts not only as a rasp, but takes a firm hold upon the food. On hold- ing the more transparent snails up to the light it is easy to see how they eat, and you can hear a nipping noise as the semicircular piece is bitten out of the leaf. Their voracity * See Dr. Hayden’s Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1874; and the Popular Science Monthly, July, 1875. 22 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. often causes immense devastation, particularly in England, where the great gray slugs will ruin a garden in one night, if the gardener is not daily on the watch. Our own straw- berries sometimes suffer, but a bor- der of sawdust, sand, or ashes around the bed is an adequate protection in dry weather. In trying to cross it, the marauders become so entangled in the particles adhering to their slimy bodies that they exhaust them- selves in the attempt to get free. They also are very fond of fungi, including many poisonous kinds. At the first hint of frost our snail feels the approach of a resistless las- situde, and, creeping under some mouldering log, or half-buried bowl- der, it attaches itself, aperture up- ward, by exuding a little glue, and settles itself for a season of hiber- nating sleep. . Withdrawing into the shell, the animal throws across the IN A SNAILERY. 23 aperture a film of slimy mucus, which hardens.as tight as -a miniature drum-head. As the weather becomes colder, the creature draws itself a little farther in, and makes an- other ‘“epiphragm,” and so on until often five or six pro- tect the animal sleeping snugly coiled in the deepest. re- cesses of his domicile. This state of torpidity is so profound that all the ordi- nary functions of the body cease—respiration being so en- tirely suspended that chemical tests are said to discover no change from its original purity in the air within the epi- phragm. Thus the snail can pass without exhaustion the long cold months of the north, when it would be impossi- ble for it to secure its customary food. This privilege of privacy reminds me of an old distich about another hiber- nater : “The tortoise securely from danger does well, When he tucks up his head and his tail in his shell.” The reviving sun of spring first interrupts this deep slumber, and the period of awakening is therefore delayed with the season, according to the varying natures of the dif- ferent species. A few species, however, seem to hibernate very little, vitrina, for example, having been seen active in cold weather, and even crawling about in the snow; while the finest American specimens live high up on the Itocky 24. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. Mountains. At any time, nevertheless, an artificial raising of the temperature breaks the torpor, the warmth of the hand being enough to set the heart beating. Extreme drouth also will cause snails to seal their doors hermetically, without even hanging a eard-basket outside. This is to shut off the evaporation of their bodily moisture, and hap- pens in midsummer; hence it is termed estivation. Cer- AN EDIBLE SNAIL. tain foreign slugs (Testacellidee) which have no shells, are able to protect themselves under the same circumstances by a gelatinous appendage of the mantle, which, in ease of sudden change of temperature, can be extended like an outer mantle, so to speak, from its place’ of storage, un- der the “buckler,”’ and having wrapped themselves, they burrow into the soil. These carnivorous testacelles are IN A SNAILERY. 25 the fiercest of all their race, and one might be excused for quoting: “But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him.” Snails are found in the most barren deserts and on the smallest islands all over the globe, reaching to near the line of perpetual snow on mountains, and restricted only by the arctic boundary of vegetation. There is a great difference between the snails of the tropics and those of high latitudes —size, number of species in a given district, and intensity of color decreasing as you go away from the equator; but this statement must be taken in a very general sense.* Different quarters of the globe are characterized by special groups of land mollusks as of other animals—thus, achati- nella, with 3800 species, is confined to the Sandwich Islands. But helix—the true snail—with its many subgenera and 2000 species, is absolutely cosmopolitan. The fresh-water forms, also, are spread everywhere, except in Australia, and flourish in cold countries, pupa having the hardihood to live * Mr. A. R. Wallace’s late work, “‘ Tropical Nature,” contained a long series of observations upon the colors of terrestrial mollusks among other animals. In two articles in “Science News,” vol.i., pp. 52 and 84, Mr. Thomas Bland studied Wallace’s principles in their application to American snails, and found that color is a matter of less account than it has hitherto been considered to be. 26 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. nearer the north pole than any other known shell. Yet it is a remarkable fact, that, however erratic and extensive may be the range of the genera to which they belong, the majority of the species of pulmonates of all sorts have an extremely limited habitat, in some cases comprising only a few square rods. A second noteworthy fact, obtaining in no other extensive group of animals, is, that many more species of land shells exist in the islands than on the conti- nents of the world. Mr. A. R. Wallace accounts for this eurious fact by explaining how certain influences make isl- ands—particularly if long insulated HELIGES IN HUMBLE CIRCUMSTANCES. IN A SNAILERY. ME —more productive than continents, and at the same time liable to be deficient in enemies to snails. How has this curious distribution come to pass? How have seemingly impassable barriers been overcome, so that closely related forms are now found at the antipodes? Snails are of domestic tastes. ‘The Heathen painted be- fore the modest women’s doors Venus sitting upon a snail, que domi forta vocatur, called a House bearer, to teach them to stay at home, and to carry their houses about with them.” They are also slow of pace, as a list of poets are ready to stand up and testify; but they have had a long time in which to “ get a good ready,” first to start, and af- terward to accomplish their travels, since their existence as arace goes back to when dark forests of ferns waved their heavy fronds over the inky paleeozoic bogs. Distance dis- appears in the presence of such prodigious time. Lands like our western plains, now an arid waste impassable to mollusks, in by- gone ages were clothed with dense and limitless verdure, where every form of terrestrial life abounded. Between the present and even the laying down of those eretaceous sandstones that make the soil of our level plains, the Rocky Mountains have been elevated from an altitude at which any. mollusk could probably have lived upon their summits, until now they may be a barrier to 28 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. many species. Such changes may have happened any- where, again and again, and thus the two halves of a com- munity been divided. In succeeding centuries the mem- bers of the parted sections may have diverged in their de- AN ALIEN IN THE CELLAR. velopment, until on this side of a mountain range, or desert, or sea, we now find one set of species and on that side an- other set, which belong to the same genera, and may in some cases be proved, as well as surmised, to have had an identical origin. IN A SNAILERY. 29 But the main explanation of their dispersion is undoubt- edly to be found in a land connection once existing be- tween the different islands of present archipelagoes, and between these and the neighboring main-lands. It has been pretty satisfactorily demonstrated that during the glacial period the oceans must have been drained of water repre- senting a universal depth of 1000 feet, in order to construct the enormously thick ice-caps which covered the polar hemispheres. This would expose a vast area of shallows, before and since deeply submerged, across which snails might easily migrate to other latitudes; when, at the end of the glacial period, the melted ice reclaimed the shallows, the snails would be left colonized upon the high points now widely separated by water. More casual circumstances have always contributed to this world-wide distribution. Snails frequently conceal themselves in crevices of bark, or firmly attach themselves to branches and foliage, and thus might be drifted long dis- tances, since they are able to resist starvation for an im- mense period, and protect themselves against injury from salt-water or excessive heat by means of opercula and epi- phragms; violent storms might frequently transport living shells a considerable distance, aquatic birds carry them or their eggs from pond to pond attached to feet or plumage. 30 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. The astonishing vitality of the snails in every stage of existence favors the theory that they endure such acciden- tal means of travel and thrive at the end of it. Professor Morse records that he has seen certain species frozen in solid blocks of ice, and afterward regain their activity; and enduring an equal extreme of heat, where the sun’s rays crisped the leaves for weeks together, without any bad ef- fect. They have been shut up for years in pill-boxes, glued for years (seven years in one case, Dr. Newcomb, of Cornell University, told me) to tablets in museums, and yet a trifle of moisture has been sufficient to resuscitate them. They survive so well being buried in the ballast of ships that at every seaport, almost, you may find species imported in that way, which came to life when the ballast was dumped at the time of unloading. That birds occasionally carry them about is well verified. Such are some of the methods of dispersion. Yet stu- dents are obliged to confess that the causes of the present puzzling geographical distribution of land shells are so com- plex that we can hardly hope to determine them with much exactness. As to the longevity of snails, little is known; but some individuals no doubt attain great age. Some species of cylindrella have a habit of deserting the point of the spire IN A SNAILERY. 31 of their long, slender shells as they grow old. The aban- doned portion speedily becomes dead, and cracks off upon the least injury. The sign of a perfect adult shell in these species, therefore, is that it is broken! Mr. Thomas Bland, the distinguished student of West Indian conchology, dis- covered this enrious fact. After the cylindrella has thus voluntarily left the upper part of his shell, he builds a par- tition across behind him. Often other mollusks are driven to a similar expedient by accident or the decay of extreme age. This is called decortication, and is almost always to be seen in the beaks of the larger unios or fresh-water mus- sels of our inland rivers. The spiral shells most likely to be thus affected are those that live in swift running water, where the bottom is rocky—such as the members of the families viviparidse and strepomatide. The latter are rare- ly seen otherwise than dreadfully broken. Another curious thing is to be noticed in this connection: whole species sometimes suddenly die out. Not only a conchologist, but others, travelling through certain parts of our western territories, are. struck by the prodigious quantities of dead white snail-shells scattered over the ground. These are the //elix cooper, of which a few are stil] living in nooks and corners of the mountains. They are of all sizes, degrees of variation, and ages, and lie a. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. bleached in millions on the surface of the ground. Mr. E. L. Layard, in a recent number of the London /%ed, men- tions a precisely similar case in Mozambique and another in Fiji. Why have these species thus suddenly become ex- tinct? As far as we can see, there is no cause for their epi- demic death. Snails, being great eaters, meet their just reward in being eaten. The paludine forms are sought after by all sorts of water birds, particularly ducks and rails; while the thrush- es and other birds crush the shells of the land snails and extract their jnicy bodies. The woodland birds, however, will not eat the naked-bodied slugs: the slime sticks to their beaks and soils their feathers; but the ducks seem to have no such dainty prejudices. Some mammals, like the raccoons and wood-rats, also eat them; insects suck their juices, and the carnivorous slugs prey upon one another. Lastly, man, the greatest enemy of the brute creation, em- ploys several species of snails for culinary purposes. By the Romans they were esteemed a great luxury, and por- tions of plantations were set apart for the cultivation of the large, edible Helix pomatia, where they were fattened by the thousand upon bran sodden in wine. From Italy this taste spread throughout the Old World, and colonies of this exotic species, survivors of classical “ preserves,” are iN A SNAILERY. 33 yet found in Great Britain where the Roman encampments were. They are still regarded as a delicacy in Italy and France, the favorite method of preparation being to boil in milk, with plenteous seasoning. Frank Buckland says that several of the larger English species are excellent food for hungry people, and recommends them either boiled in milk, or, in winter, raw, after soaking for an hour in salt and water. Some of the French restaurants in London have them placed regularly upon their bills of fare. Thou- sands are collected annually and sent to London as food for eage-birds. Dr. Edward Gray stated, a few years ago, that immense quantities were shipped alive to the United States “Cas delicacies ;” but I am inclined to consider this an exag- geration growing out of the fact that, among our fancy gro- eeries “a few jars of pickled snails, imported from Italy,” figure as a curiosity, rather than something needed, for the table. The same author records that the glassmen at New- castle once a year have a snail feast, collecting the animals in the fields and hedges on the Sunday before. Mr. W.G. Binney, for whom a sirup of snails was pre- scribed by two regular physicians in Paris in 1863, points out how old is the belief that land mollusks possess valua- ble medicinal qualities. In the Middle Ages the rudimen- tary shell of the slug acquired a high rank among the nu- 8 34 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. merous bezoars and amulets which were supposed to pro- tect the body from evil influences, and to impart health and activity. ‘The accounts of these virtues, copied from one author to another, have perpetuated the early superstitions until it is difficult to overcome them by the light of the present day, when, even in England, snails are supposed to possess a useful power in cases of lung trouble.