SNAIL FOLK 



great was their weight. And wampum of the right 

 purple color once had great purchasing power in 

 land and slaves. 



While our sophisticated banker might sneer at 

 the idea of a cabinet of shells, however beautiful or 

 rare, and laugh at a necklace of cowries hung on 

 some savage squaw, yet he will pay fabulous sums 

 for the shining spheres which are the evidences of 

 disease in four and twenty pearl oysters. And again, 

 in the case of pukka oysters our man of the city 

 thrills with the satisfaction and approval of a con- 

 chologist though only for a brief time between cock- 

 tails and soup, and gustatorily rather than intel- 

 ligently. 



All the time we are rambling on with what we 

 are pleased to imagine worthy lucubrations, our 

 periwinkle is steadily placing the inches behind 

 him. He turns neither to right nor left, and his 

 pace is unchanged whether over glass, cedar, blot- 

 ting paper, or manuscript. At the edge of the table 

 I turn him into reverse, and he unconsciously glides 

 back — the points of the compass are all one to 

 him. I start him again at the bottom of his dish 

 and watch him carefully through the glass. When 

 his operculum or lid is slowly lowered from place 

 it is followed by his head — a real one with mouth, 

 two sensitive horns or tentacles and two bright eyes 

 at the base of the horns. The only other part of the 

 snail which is visible is the oval, flat, fleshy foot on 

 which he moves. There is a line down the center and 

 the periwinkle advances by shoving ahead first the 



211 



