442 МК. Т. А. DYMES ON THE 
head side. I am, however, too ignorant of molluscan anatomy to explain 
the reason. Thus burdened, it crawled in a straight line for some minutes, 
but at last, after covering 14 inches, it had to turn ; that caused the seed to 
slip, and it was left behind on the newspaper on which I had the snail, having 
been carried a distance of 18 inches altogether : it took the molluse just over 
ten minutes to cover this distance 
a somewhat slow rate compared with that 
registered by Sir Herbert Maxwell ; it wasted some time, however, in turning 
the corner. 
In its wanderings it happened to pick up a fruitlet of Geranium Ro- 
bertianum ; I did not know it was there, but I had been experimenting 
on the same paper with this species a few days previously. The fruitlet was 
caught by the threads, and the snail did not get rid of it at all. Out of 
euriosity, Г prodded him with the point of a pencil until he retired com- 
pletely into his shell, and in doing so he shed a Hellebore but not the 
Geranium seed ; № was still quite close to the edge of the shell when he 
began to wander again. Subsequently I set him free, and 16 was still on his 
body, where it had been for at least twenty minutes. 
In dealing even with short-distance dispersal, а matter of а few inches 
may seem hardly worth recording at all ; but nevertheless, and I do not speak 
at random, it is a valuable contribution to that local dispersal with which we 
are now concerned. I have long ago come to the conclusion that for any 
given species dispersal is, as a rule, a question of several agents rather than 
of one; and Helleborus fwtidus appears to be so little in harmony with its 
environment here that, when trying to understand its life-history, one eannot 
afford to ignore even such a trifle as this. 
Six inches a year in all directions from a given point would in ten years 
account for a circle with a diameter of 10 feet and an area of 78:6, and ten 
years is but a moment in the life of a species ; if we allow the 18 inches, the 
distance I saw the seed carried, then the area at the end of ten years would 
be 707 square feet, or roughly a square 9 yards each way, allowing nothing 
whatever for other agents, which, with J//elleborus fœtidus, would most 
certainly be a very great mistake. This is a contribution which, as such, is 
not to be despised, and, as a matter of fact, I have watched snails on my 
gravel-path travel as much as 6 yards or 18 feet in a straight line without a 
break in order to secure a dainty put down for the birds. 
I do not for a moment imagine that one can legitimately consider the point 
proved ; but it is perhaps reasonable to think of Helix aspersa as a possible 
contributor to the dispersal of the seeds, in addition to being a very efficient 
disintegrator of the mass. Observation later on will perhaps supply the proof 
of what experiment suggests. Meanwhile, Мейл aspersa goes the pace at the 
rate of 2 inches a minute, or a mile in 22 days, and, but for this unproved 
point, it certainly may be that some of the missing seeds were carried by 
them away from the 2-foot square area that I used. 
