SNAIL FOLK 



style of progress. In the course of time the architec- 

 ture might vary — spines and pillars, furrows and 

 cones might be added, pigment of the whole spec- 

 trum, a hut-like home which was its own door, or 

 an elaborate hinged entrance ; a mere flattened scale 

 or an embossed superstructure of jointed armor — 

 to such unimportant lengths of variation, but no 

 farther, might a mollusk go without endangering 

 precedent. No wonder we find these creatures domi- 

 nant as fossils, when in life they are little else, born 

 in a ready-made, rocky sarcophagus, with interior 

 decoration and reinforced concrete construction as 

 their chief indoor sports throughout life. 



With the slogan of " eternally conservative " the 

 ancient snails spread along all the shores of the sea, 

 clambering to the furthest spray of high tide. While 

 they were content to munch old fragments of algge 

 and cringe to all the cosmos, their neighbors fought 

 and died, and through their changed offspring lived 

 again. Landward crept the pioneers, fish, crabs, 

 worms, and even lowly single-cellers, all changing, 

 altering every portion of their beings to meet and 

 cope with the new conditions. And along with this 

 host, quietly glided the same old snails, outstrip- 

 ping their other neighbors of the dawn of life — 

 sponges, jelly-fish, and sea-urchins — which were 

 fated forever to remain prisoners of the denser 

 medium, and hastening in the footsteps of their 

 betters. Today I see cousins of the periwinkle in 

 full sunlight, creeping upon dry leaves high over 

 my head, far from their original home, yet with al- 



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