2 RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF SHELLS. 



except that they remorselessly devour our cabhage 

 and other cultivated plants, or disfigure them with 

 their slimy trails as they crawl over them — if the 

 comparative anatomist, undaunted by their repulsive 

 appearance, had not by means of skilful dissection 

 learnt something of their wonderful structure and 

 given us the result of his investigations. In the 

 early days of conchology, it was held sufficient to 

 study the shells only of these animals, and the 

 possessor of an extensive collection of such shells 

 might be intimately acquainted with the name, 

 geographical distribution, and proper place in a 

 systematic arrangement of every specimen in his 

 cabinet without necessarily knowing anything of the 

 animal that formed it. Now, however, the con- 

 chologist has given place to the malacologist, 

 who, not content with examining, describing, and 

 naming the shell, independently of its inhabitant, 

 curiously questions the latter as to its habits and 

 internal structure, and in the case of those which 

 possess a single shell (Univalves), he literally learns 

 the relationship of each species from the animal's 

 own mouth. 



Snails and slugs both have the power of drawing 



