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have been transported upon this coast from the gardens of 

 England. It is called the 



HELIX IIORTENSIS OR GARDEN SNAIL. 



In England, the species is a very brilliant shell, the 

 varieties of banded ones (bright yellow on brown, or 

 brown on yellow), being much more numerous than plain 

 brown or yellow shells. But in the eastern part of this 

 country the land mollusks have shells which are mostly 

 uniform in color and somewhat dull — brown being the 

 prevailing hue. And these specimens of the garden 

 snail which Ave find here are mostly of a uniform yellow 

 — the banded ones being scarce and when found not very 

 bright in color. 



The question is, how did these shells come upon the 

 American coast? We might say that they came over 

 from Europe in the Mayflower or subsequent vessels. 

 As so many trace their ancestry, we might say that three 

 brothers of them came over a great many years since and 

 settled here, and all these snails were derived from that 

 stock. But this theory is upset by the fact that these 

 shells are found upon islands far out to sea, uninhabited 

 and seldom visited. We cannot suppose the hand of man 

 placed them there. Upon the coast of Maine, eight miles 

 out from land, nearly off Harpswell, is an island, — we 

 call it an island by courtesy, although it is very small, 

 the sea side but a mass of rocks, and the inside a gentle 

 slope with a few stunted cedar trees and a profusion of 

 the plants of the wild morning glory. Turn over almost 

 any shelving stone and you will find the nest of the stormy 

 petrel. There we find immense quantities of these shells, 

 which you may gather by the quart. The island is almost 

 unapproachable. The day I landed I had to employ a 

 boatman to keep the boat off the rocks by rowing while I 

 explored the island. On that little strip no man planted 



