THE HOME OF THE SNAIL 



Among the beautiful pictures 



That hang on memory's wall, 

 Is one of a dim old forest, 



That seemeth best of all. 



-ALICE CAEY. 



Several weeks after our visit to the museum, Professor Parker invited 

 us to go with him to the woods on a collecting trip after land snails. 

 Accordingly one bright morning our quartette, with the Professor, 

 boarded the street car; and after a ride of half an hour we reached 

 the country, ready for work. The piece of woodland in which the 

 Professor wished to make the collec- 

 tions was about a mile from the car 

 lines, and toward this we wended our 

 way. 



It was a beautiful day; the air was 



COol and the SUn shone brifflltly, although Polygyra palliata. A common land 



/ ' snail. (Bmney.) 



not too warmly, and everything about us 



looked fresh and green after the warm rain of the previous day. The 

 country road was sandy and bordered on either side by a small ditch, 

 through which was flowing a stream of clear water from a nearby 

 spring. At the left, a field of grain was ripening in the sun, the breeze 

 making long billows over its even surface. On the opposite side, the 

 cattle were grazing in a pasture bordered by a hedge of low shrubs. 



Jumping over the fence which inclosed the pasture, and crossing 

 the field, we were soon in the woods busily searching for its niollus- 

 can inhabitants. 



Each one carried a collecting outfit, consisting of a tin mustard 

 box, a couple of wide-mouthed two-ounce bottles, and several homoeo- 

 pathic vials, the corks of which were tied to the neck of the bottle 

 by a stout thread to insure us against their loss in the underbrush. 

 The bottoms of the tin boxes and of the large bottles were lined with 

 cotton to prevent the thin shells of some of the snails from being 

 broken. For scratching away the dead leaves, under which many 

 species of mollusks are found, each had a small hand rake with a short 



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