MEANS OF DISPERSAL. I 55 



some loose stones near Rockhampton, Queensland, 

 Mr. Musson recently found a beetle carrying a land- 

 snail of the genus Vitrina (or Helicarion) upon one of 

 its wing-cases ; and it would not require a very great 

 stretch of imagination, as he observes, " to consider 

 that, could the insect have taken flight with this strange 

 companion as passenger, it might have been the means 

 by which distribution would have been aided, and thus 

 a new colony be started where possibly the species had 

 been before unknown." ^ Some years ago, at Lambley 

 Dumbles, near Nottingham, the same observer saw one 

 of our common little snails, Helix rotundata, riding 

 about on the back of a woodlouse, and it is perhaps 

 worth mentioning that on another occasion, at Clifton, 

 Bristol, he saw a full-grown chrysalis-shell [Pupa innbili- 

 cata), not yet aroused from torpor, securely fastened to 

 a specimen of Helix virgata — the zoned-snail — which 

 was crawling out after a shower ; these facts, however, 

 are chiefly interesting for their curiosity. Most kinds 

 of animals, no doubt, have helped in the work in 

 some way or other; mammals, for instance, some of 

 which habitually feed on molluscs, often carrying the 

 creatures for short distances, must sometimes let them 

 drop by accident, or desert them on being suddenly at- 

 tacked or frightened. A rat, after running some paces 

 from home, was once observed to '* climb the stalk of a 

 hollyhock, clear off several snails, bring them down in one 

 paw like an armful, and run with them on three legs into 

 his hole," the inside of which was strewn for some distance 

 ^ C.T. Musson, " Proc. Lin. Soc, N.S.W.," (?), iv. (i! 



