I902 Snails in Winter 25 



record the dates on which they find any Htters of dormice, 

 especially if these should be in the spring, a point to 

 which readers of this journal might turn their attention 

 in the coming season. 



Snails in Winter. 



By Arthur E. Boycott. 



It has often occurred to me that too many naturalists are 

 apt to take the bad advice which is given in some of the 

 books, and spend the winter in " looking over their collec- 

 tions." Such advice is bad in two ways, for not only are 

 the dark days, with their frequent necessity for artificial light, 

 quite the worst in which to examine specimens, but a study 

 of the habits of an animal which is limited to its behaviour 

 during the summer is altogether incomplete without a know- 

 ledge of its reaction in less propitious circumstances. For 

 the sheer accumulation of specimens the conchologist will 

 not, on the whole, find the winter a favourable time. This 

 is perhaps a good thing, for it is well that a part of the 

 delights of acquisition should sometimes be replaced by the 

 less conclusive joys of meditation. And the " philosophical " 

 conchologist, in whom our fathers so delighted, will find 

 abundant occasion for his philosophy in a wintry day in the 

 country. 



Why is it that the snails which crawl about so freely in 

 the autumn are only to be found after a frost in close nooks 

 and crannies, often buried in the earth, and as a rule with 

 some more or less substantial covering over the more ex- 

 posed parts of their person — in short, bearing every appear- 

 ance of trying to avoid the cold as much as possible ? A 

 certain number of human beings show a decided preference 

 for staying by the fire under similar circumstances, but in 

 the case of our snails it is not a case of choice, but of com- 

 pulsion. In order that those processes of sensation, locomo- 

 tion, and the like, which in the ordinary way constitute the 

 more palpable evidences of vitality, may be duly carried out, 



