Land- snails 367 



as York — where there is no vestige of tlie snail, whilst 

 on the chalk ranges of the south it is abundant with- 

 out the slightest regard to sites of Roman habitations. 



There is a general impression that the name Apple- 

 snail is reflected in the specific name 'po'\naiia, but 

 this is a mistake, the word being taken not from the 

 Latin 'po'inn'\n, an apple, but from the Greek poma, a 

 pot-lid. The reference here is to the solid chalky 

 epiphragm with which it closes the mouth of its 

 shell before hibernation. When the time comes for 

 its winter rest it seeks the shelter of stubs in the 

 copse, and there burrows down through the dead 

 leaves, sometimes a little into the earth beneath them. 

 With its slime it unites some of the leaves to form a 

 roof, and then getting its shell in such a position 

 that the mouth is upward, it constructs the thick 

 epiphragm, and within that again an ordinary filmy 

 epiphragm such as other species make. It is usual 

 with snails to leave a minute aperture in the 

 epiphragm to admit air, but this thick " pot-lid " of 

 IJomatia is not perforated; rather is it that the 

 whole structure is porous, as though made of plaster 

 of Paris, which it resembles. About April the 

 mollusk wakes up and pushes aside its doors, coming 

 out with a good appetite to feed on the tender young 

 leaves. In May these snails pair, and in the first half 

 of June they deposit their eggs. 



In the year 1854 Mr. E. J. Lowe, F.R.S., communi- 

 cated to the Roj^al Society some observations on the 

 growth of land-snails, in which he stated that " most 

 species bury themselves in the ground to increase the 

 dimensions of their shells. H. poniatia and other shells 

 (■^^ic) retreat for that purpose in summer, having their 

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