146 THE DISPERSAL OF SHELLS. 



it has been suggested ' that minute land-shells and other 

 animals may be carried, by similar means, across arms 

 of the sea. 



Dead leaves, which are frequently caught up and 

 blown to distances, are often inhabited by small land- 

 shells : indeed, in order to procure specimens for the 

 cabinet, some collectors take home quantities of leaves, 

 from which, when dried, great numbers of shells are 

 sometimes sorted out; Dr. Turton told Mr. Jeffreys, for 

 instance, that he procured many specimens of Helix 

 pygvicea by collecting a bagful of dead and rather moist 

 leaves and afterwards spreading them on paper to dry/ 

 On Oak Island, Dr. Gould found Cochlicopa hibrica in 

 such numbers that hundreds could be taken from the 

 ground with a single fallen leaf, and, as the moisture 

 evaporated, all, it is said, " disappeared beneath the 

 leaves." ^ Only violent hurricanes, it will be remem- 

 bered, are likely to carry away moist and decaying 

 leaves, which are generally matted together and lie 

 heavily one upon another, and it may be doubted, 

 perhaps, whether shells are often very abundant among 

 loose dry leaves which alone are likely to be blown 

 about by wind-storms at ordinary times. In April, in 

 Epping Forest, I collected a large number of little shells 

 belonging to seven species — Hyalinia fulva, H. piira 



^ " Our Earth and its Story," iii. (Cassell : no date), p. 40. 



^ "British Conchology," i. (1862), pp. 223-4. 



3 Dr. Goukl, " Invertebrata of Massachusetts," as quoted by 

 Reeve, "Land and fresh-water MoUusks," 1863, p. 93, and see 

 Binney, " Terrestrial air-breathing MoUusks," i, (1851). 139. 



