POPULAR MISCELLANY 



573 



must be excluded. The real carpet-indus- 

 try of the East is threatened with ruin from 

 the competition of inferior English prison- 

 work and the introduction of modern so- 

 called improvements ; and the modern Smyr- 

 na carpets have so degenerated " as even, 

 in England, not to be accounted orna- 

 mental." 



Life - History of American Snails. 



Snails, according to Mr. Binney's mono- 

 graph on " American Land-Shells," live in 

 the forest, passing the greater part of their 

 lives sheltered under the trunks of fallen 

 trees, layers of decaying leaves, or stones, 

 or in the soil. In the early days of spring 

 they eome out in companies, to sun them- 

 selves, and possibly to make love. Their 

 eggs, which are laid when the weather has 

 become favorable, are deposited in bunches 

 of from thirty to fifty or more, slightly stuck 

 together without any order, under the shel- 

 ter of the leaves, or at the sides of logs and 

 stones, generally at as great a depth be- 

 neath the surface as the animal can reach, 

 and are then abandoned. This act is re- 

 peated two or three times during the season. 

 The embryo can be seen within the egg in 

 two or three days after it is laid, and 

 emerges in the course of from twenty to 

 thirty days, according to the weather. The 

 young animal gnaws its way out of the egg, 

 and makes its first meal out of the shell it 

 has just left, and is then a snail of about a 

 whorl and a half. But it grows very fast. 

 It begins to prepare for hibernation at 

 about the first frost, by ceasing to feed, be- 

 coming inactive, and fixing itself to the 

 under surface of the substance by which it 

 is sheltered, or burrowing a little way into 

 the soil. The aperture of the shell looks 

 upward, and the snail closes it by forming 

 a glutinous shell-substance over it which is 

 called the epiphragm. In this condition it 

 reposes till spring. It also forms an epi- 

 phragm when it is in danger of being dried 

 up in' long droughts. Snails dislike to ex- 

 pose themselves to the sun, and are most 

 lively on damp and dark days and at night. 

 The American species are for the most part 

 solitary, and in this respect differ greatly 

 from their European congeners, which are 

 social. Those, however, which have been 

 introduced from Europe and they are not 



few retain their native habits. The ap- 

 pendages which perform the office of teeth 

 for snails are peculiar in structure and va- 

 rious in form, and they do good execution 

 on whatever eatables the animals may at- 

 tack. The slugs are snails without external 

 shells ; are more nocturnal in their habits 

 than the other snails ; and are seldom visi- 

 ble in the daytime, though there may be 

 thousands of them around. They do not 

 hibernate, although they are partially tor- 

 pid in cold weather. They have the faculty 

 of suspending themselves in the air by 

 means of a thread which they spin from a 

 mucus secreted within their bodies. They 

 have also the power of secreting at any 

 point, or over the whole surface of their 

 bodies, a more viscid and tenacious mucus, 

 having the consistence of milk and nearly 

 the same color which constitutes a fairly 

 valid armor of defense for them. It pro- 

 tects them against irritating substances, 

 against corrosive gases, water, alcohol, and 

 heat. They leave a trace of their usual se- 

 cretion on every object over which they 

 pass. This secretion appears to be neces- 

 sary to their existence, for death follows 

 the failure of the power to form it. All 

 the species are exceedingly voracious, and 

 feed upon plants and dead animal matter. 

 Living creatures are too quick for them. 

 They do much damage in the night and then 

 retire to their hiding-places, leaving the 

 gardener to wonder in the morning what 

 destroying monster has been working among 

 his plants. 



AntoMography of an Ancient Cyclone. 



Mr. John T. Campbell, of Rockville, Indi- 

 ana, has described in the " American Natu- 

 ralist" his tracing, by means of "tree-graves," 

 of the course of a cyclone which passed 

 more than three hundred years ago. The 

 date of the storm was marked by noting 

 the age of an oak which had grown on the 

 top of one of the " tree-graves " or mounds. 

 Its course was found by inquiring where 

 other " tree : graves " had existed or had been 

 observed in the past, and was traced in a 

 belt about a thousand feet wide for fifteen 

 miles. The " tree-graves," as Mr. Campbell 

 calls them, are the marks that indicate where 

 trees have been blown over, and consist of 

 a depression formed by the pulling up of 



