THI-: MUSEUM. 



75 



Notes on Helix Memoralis. Linne 

 and Helix Hortensis. Mueller. 



m rilE KliV. J \\. IIOUSLEV, M.A. 



It was disgu5t that me a student of 

 snails. Not the affected disgust of a 

 young woman when she discovers a 

 beautiful and interesting specimen of 

 Arioii atcr upon the rose she has un- 

 necessarily plucked; but the disgust at 

 myself, a naturalist by heredity and by 

 environment and education from my 

 earliest years, when I found by the in- 

 spection of a collection of British land 

 shells made by a young friend that I 

 had poked abjut hedges and ditches. 

 woods and clifTs, for thirty out of the 

 forty years I had lived, and yet had 

 never noticed shells so striking in color 

 and variation as Helix ncvioralis. I 

 set to work at once to remedy this de- 

 fect in my character as a general ob- 

 server of nature, and at first collected 

 only iitinoralis and Itortcnsis. Soon, 

 however, this led me to help the col 

 lections of others and to form one for 

 myself by gathering all the British land 

 and fresh-water molluscs. And then 

 I cast my eyes abroad thai I might 

 better learn how to see at home, and 

 laid the foundation of what is now a 

 fairly large collection of the Helicidae 

 of the world. The path that proved 

 so pleasant to me is one on which 1 

 have induced the feet of not a few lads 

 and men to tread, and with beginners 

 I have always directed their attention 

 first to these two Helices, so striking 

 and so common To display my col- 

 lection of the varieties and variations 

 of nemoralis and hortensis is alwa>s to 

 excite astonishment, and frequently to 

 incite people to do and to possess like- 

 wise. A few notes, therefore, on these 

 allied shells may be of interest to those 

 who have not directed any special at- 

 tention to their peculiarities. 



P"irst, let me utter a British growl, a 

 grammarian's grumble, anent the ab- 

 surdity or the misleading character of 

 some of the scientific names we must 

 encounter. Helix nemoralis, the snail 

 of the groves, need never be pursued 



in the grove when there is a hedge 

 handy, and especial!)' is it abimdant 

 on sand-hills by the sea, which arc 

 about as diverse from groves as any- 

 thing can be. When the broken shells 

 of nemoralis are found in a wood, it 

 may generally be discovered that they 

 have been brought in from outside by 

 s.jme thrush, and that few living speci- 

 mens can be found in the wood itself, 

 e.xcept where they have entered beech 

 woods for the purpose, so dear to them 

 at certain times of the year, of ascend- 

 ing the smooth boles of the beech. 

 Such nemora nemoralis are. according 

 to my observation, usually of the na- 

 ture of copses or plantations, and the 

 deeper the wood the less the chance of 

 finding nemoralis therein. Nor is the 

 accuracy of the term Helix Iiortensis, 

 the garden snail, much greater. I can 

 only recall one garden, at Trentham, 

 in which I hive found it abundantly. 

 The hedge-row snail would be abet- 

 ter name, and //. aspersa might by 

 the general acclamation and execration 

 of all gardeners become the real hor- 

 tensis. Nor are one's growls hushed 

 when some of the varietal names are 

 noted. Who was the maniac who 

 called first the yellow bandless variety 

 of nemoralis, libellulat The word is 

 as unknown to classical Latin, as class- 

 ical Latin is usually unknown to those 

 who libel and ill-treat specimens by the 

 so-cilled scientific names they give 

 them. There is, indeed, lihella, which 

 means an as, two-thirds of the truth 

 concerning the sponsor of the shell. In 

 the Latin of Natural History, how- 

 ever, Lihellula means but a dragonfly. 

 Were the dragon-t1ies which the au- 

 thor of the name had seen, uniformly 

 bright yellow.' Or did he lind in their 

 strongly reticulated wings, their enor- 

 mous eyes, their powerful flight, and 

 their carnivorous habits, the points of 

 similarity to the shell which caused 

 him to make the names identical.' 

 Then the red unicolorous and unhand- 

 ed variety is called rubella. This in 

 somewhat late Latin means reddish, 

 but why is rubra not used.' Its hue is 



