( >thcr Invertebrate-Animal 



459 





It is interesting to observe through a lens, the way a snail takes his 

 dinner; place before him a piece of sweet apple or other soft fruit, and he 

 will lift himself on his front toe and begin to work his way into the fruit. 



He has an efficient set of 

 upper teeth, which look like 

 a saw and are colored as if he 

 chewed tobacco; with these 

 teeth and with his round 

 tongue, which we can see 

 popping out, he soon makes 

 an appreciable hole in the 

 pulp; but his table manners 

 are not nice, since he is a hope- 

 less slobberer. 



There are right and left 

 spiraled snails. All those ob- 

 served for this lesson show the 

 spiral wound about the center 

 from left over to right, or in 

 the direction of the movement 

 of the hands of a clock, and 

 this is usually the case. With 

 the spiral like this, the breath- 

 ing pore is on the right side of 

 the snail and may be seen as 

 an opening where the snail 

 joins the shell. This pore 

 may be seen to open and con- 

 tract slowly; by this motion, 

 the air is sucked into the shell 

 where it bathes the snail's 

 lung, and is then forced out 

 a process very similar to our 

 own breathing. 



The snail has good judg- 

 ment when attacked; at the 

 first scare, he simply draws in 

 his eyes and feelers and with- 

 draws his head, so that noth- 

 ing can be seen of him from 

 above, except a hard shell 

 which would not attract the 

 passing bird. But if the at- 

 tack continues, he lets go all 

 hold on the world, and noth- 

 ing can be seen of him but a 

 little mass which blocks the 

 door to his house ; and if he is 

 obliged to experience a drought, he makes a pane of glass out of mucus 

 across his door, and thus stops evaporation. This is a very wise precau- 

 tion, because the snail is made up largely of moisture and much water is 

 needed to keep his mucilage factory running. 



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Snail societies. 



i. The thorny path to bliss; ?. Snail showing the 

 breathing-pore; 3. Prospecting. 



