498 Zoological Society. 



We have not now before us the whole of the projected work, as 

 this Part is occupied with structural and morphological botany ex- 

 clusively. 



The brief recapitulation inserted at the end of each section will be 

 of peculiar value to the student. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL. SOCIETY. 



-ijovember 26, 1850.— R. H. Solly, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. 



' '^ On the habits of Helix lactea. 



^' By J. S. Gaskoin, F.Z.S. etc. 



^As all facts relating to animated nature, elucidating the habits and 

 powers of living creatures, however low their station in the scale of 

 creation, must be interesting and instructive, I do not hesitate to place 

 before the Zoological Society a few observations I have been enabled 

 to make on some individuals of the genus Helix. In April 1849, I 

 purchased four or five specimens oi Helix lactea (African), and placed 

 them in water to be cleaned for my cabinet ; one, some hour or two 

 after immersion, resuscitated, and escaped from the vessel. These 

 specimens were selected from a great many others, all of which had 

 been together in a dry dusty drawer in the dealer's shop for more than 

 two years, and had been imported by a merchant of Mogadore, in 

 whose possession they had remained, in a similar condition, for a still 

 longer period. The test of submersion in water was afterwards prac- 

 tised on the whole stock of the dealer, and none reviving, it was con- 

 cluded all were dead. I placed the living stranger under a large glass 

 bell on a tub of earth, and it lived well on cucumbers and the outside 

 leaves of cabbages, &c., quite alone, until the end of the following 

 October, when I discovered about thirty minute black helices, not the 

 twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter, crawling on the inside of the glass, 

 on the mould, &c. At first I had doubts as to their origin, but with 

 growth the markings and form of my African captive being approach" 

 ed, the point was no longer to be mistaken. Some of these are now 

 (October 30, 1850) nearly as large as the parent, which measures 11- 

 inch across the long diameter of the aperture, although the lip in no 

 instance has begun to evert ; thus twelve months have not sufficed to 

 attain the adult state. Now as the Helix is known to be bi-sexual, 

 and not hermaphrodite, it follows that in this instance impregnation 

 or conception must have occurred prior to the capture of the animal, 

 after which it fell into a state of suspended animation, and is traced 

 to have remained so for more than four years ; and we know nothing 

 of the time it may have remained in the hands of the native gatherer 

 before he took his collectings to the town dealer for sale ; and I see 

 no reason why, vitality having been latent for so lengthened a period, 

 it might not have continued so almost indefinitely, and on the resto- 

 ration of animation all the functions of the system resumed at once 



