268 - THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



stated to make an attractive and amusing pet, and to be quite 

 palatable! For on the authority of Owen Jones "rat-pie 

 tastes like rabbit if made from well-fed animals." 



Some years ago the Rev. E. A. Woodruffe-Peacock 

 contributed an interesting paper on " Thrush Stones and 

 Helix neuioralts, L.,"^ in which he showed that the shells of 

 these snails found at thrushes' anvils were in a very large 

 proportion unhanded, and that shells with a single band 

 came next in frequency. The banding of the shell may, 

 therefore, be supposed to possess a certain value as a 

 protective character ; and to further test such a theory an 

 investigation was recently undertaken by A. E. Trueman, of 

 University College, Nottingham, who records his results in a 

 short paper entitled, " Shell-banding as a Means of Protec- 

 tion." ^ Two collections were made in the same locality, one a 

 " standard " collection of unbleached dead shells found during 

 the winter, and the other an " anvil " collection of shells 

 broken by thrushes. Of the latter, some 2000 specimens were 

 obtained, and percentages were then worked out of the 

 varieties of banding in the two collections. It was found 

 that " although fully two-fifths of the standard collection had 

 the normal five bands, little more than half this proportion of 

 the broken shells were so marked." Of unhanded shells the 

 standard collection contained 25 per cent, and the broken 

 shells 38 per cent. The figures show that the chances of an 

 unhanded shell being observed are roughly three times as 

 great as of a normal, i.e. five-banded, shell. Previous work 

 in support of the theory of protection by banding thus 

 appears to be confirmed by these results, although it is 

 admitted that banding alone is not a guarantee of safety. 

 The subject is certainly worthy of still further attention — 

 on a larger scale. 



'!=>* 



1 Naturalist, 1909, pp. 171-74 and 257-59. 



- Attn. a?id Mag. Nat. Hist., October J 9 16, pjj. 341-4: 



