SEED-MASS ETC. OF HELLEBORUS F(ETIDUS. 44] 
broken, and the foot of the snail covered most of the seeds. I watched 
it crawling over them, and I saw one of them which was on the edge of 
the snail’s body dragged for a short distance before it got free from the 
tail end. 
At midnight I looked at the snail again: he was eating the other mass, 
and there was one seed on the body, on the median line and close to the 
edge of the shell on the head side. I was unlucky in having missed the 
critical moment, for the seed was not there about half-an-hour previously. 
By the next morning the snail had broken up both masses and had 
devoured a portion of the Violet-leaf : he had confined himself to one side 
of the midrib and had eaten about a third of the way up from the base— 
1. е, а good half of that side; but the point of immediate interest was 
that one seed was sticking to the top of the glass jar 54 inches from the 
soil and an inch or more away from the now resting snail. 
In the evening I removed the Violet-leaf, and left the snail with only the 
remains of the two masses and one additional fresh one; and at 11 p.m. 
it was eating the strip of the fresh mass. I hoped that if I kept it short of 
food it might wander about; and I was not disappointed, for at 7.40 
the next morning there were, in addition to the one sticking to the top 
of the jar, three other seeds on its side at various levels. 
Apparently my snail had been more hungry than he liked, for, whereas оп 
the first two nights, when he could make up with Chrysanthemum and Violet 
leaves, the masses were not reduced altogether to single seeds, on the third 
night no two seeds remained attached to one another and all of them had 
been completely stripped of the elaiosome. 
It looked therefore as if the snails might carry these seeds about, to the 
extent of a few inches at least, for I could think of no other possible 
explanation of those on the top and the side of the jar; but I was a little 
uneasy about drawing conclusions, and I still am, for it is quite possible that 
the side of the jar, instead of the irregularities of the soil, may have been 
responsible for the seeds getting upon the body of the snail. One cannot 
reckon upon such things in nature, although it is tempting to assume that 
an erect stem, or a conveniently placed stone, in the open may have taken 
the place of the side of the jar. I had therefore to leave this point undecided, 
to my regret. It still remains to be proved that the seeds get upon the snail's 
back without artificial assistanco. 
I was, however, more successful in proving the possibility of short-distance 
dispersal if they do get or are placed there. I made several trials with 
another captive, and I got so interested that I was up more than half the 
night of July 31st. It is sufficient to say that the creature resented a seed 
being put upon its tail, and very soon sloughed it off ; it was equally touchy 
about its head and the parts thereabouts, but it seemed quite unconcerned if 
one were placed on the body near or against the edge of the shell on the 
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