COLLECTING NON-MARINE SHELLS 



FRESH WATER SNAILS 



By Frank C. Baker 



Reprinted from 1941 Annual Report, American Malacological Union 



Fresh water snails have attracted attention for years and many quite 

 extensive collections have been gathered v^hich are of considerable scien- 

 tific importance. Directions for collecting these inhabitants of the waters 

 and preserving them for the cabinet arc not usually available, and possibly 

 many amateurs have been deterred from making such collections for lack 

 of proper directions. The methods of collecting and preserving these snails 

 are simple and are briefly described herewith. 



Where Fresh Water Snails May be Found. Fresh water snails may be 

 found in almost any body of water, even the ephemeral pools of meadows 

 and woodlands. There is scarcely a river, creek, pond or lake that does not 

 contain one or more species of snails. Some species, as the pond snails, 

 Lymnaea and the planorbids, prefer quiet bodies of water where food is 

 plentiful among the aquatic vegetation. Other snails, as Amnicola, Goniob- 

 asis and Pleurocera, prefer the shores of rivers. In some rivers, as in the 

 Wabash in Indiana, the snails live in shallow water on ledges of limestone 

 or other rock which extend far out from the shore. Such a situation occurs 

 at New Harmony, Indiana, where the father of American conchology, 

 Thomas Say, made many of his collections. 



Lakes usually contain many species of snails which live among the 

 aquatic vegetation near the shore or on rocky beaches. Some of the 

 lymnaeas, planorbs, and physas may be found in such habitats. Often 

 beach pools, areas of water behind barriers which have been formed by the 

 waves of the lake, afford good collecting localities. In America snails are 

 not found in the deep part of lakes, as is the case in some European and 

 Asiatic lakes (Lakes Balaton, Baikal, Leman, and others), but are confined 

 to the limit of rooted vegetation, not to exceed 15 feet in depth. The great 

 majority, however, live in water 6 feet or less in depth. Roadside rills where 

 there is little water and much vegetation may contain several kinds of small 

 snails, as Menetus, Fossaria, and Planorbula. 



Snails are not, as a rule, found in cold lakes at high altitudes or in 

 cold, swiftly flowing streams like those in the New England states and in 



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