200 THE DISPERSAL OF SHELLS. 



in a garden near Funchal.^ Helix acuta is said by 

 Kobelt to have arrived alive in gardens at Frank- 

 fort on palm-trunks." The Lexington colony of Helix 

 nemoralis, according to Professor Morrison, probably 

 sprang from specimens imported *' in earth, in flower- 

 pots," ^ and many facts proving such transportal are 

 likely to have been observed in different parts of 

 the world. Thus — to give the only instances with 

 which I am acquainted — during Sir C. Lyell's stay in 

 Madeira no less than three species of Portuguese 

 snails {Helices) were found in the earth of a single 

 flower-pot in which a garden plant had been sent from 

 Lisbon ; "* and several specimens of Pupa umbilicata were 

 once found alive, together with a specimen of Clausilia 

 rugosa^ in the mould around some ferns received by Mr. 

 Musson at Nottingham from Derbyshire. The eggs of 

 many kinds, seemingly specially suited for dissemination 

 in these modes, are probably carried much more fre- 

 quently than the adult animals, but from being com- 

 paratively inconspicuous and often buried in soil or 

 concealed about the roots of plants they are not likely 

 to be often noticed. 



* T. V. Wollaston, " Testacea Atlantica," 1878, p. 205. 



^ " Zoological Record," vii. (1870), p. 130, referring to Kobelt, 

 " Nachr. mal. Ges.," ii. p. 160. 



3 H. A. Pilsbry, " Nautilus,'' iii. (1889), pp. 51-2. 



^ " Principles," ii. p. 427 ; and see a letter from Lyell to Bun- 

 bury, dated in 1856, referring to Madeira : " a friend of Wollaston 

 received a flower from Europe in a pot very lately, and found five 

 species [sic] of European helices alive, buried in the mould." 

 "Life, Letters and Journals of Sir C. Lyell, Bart.," ii. (1881), 

 p. 209. 



