Land-snails 375 



The Plaited Door - shell {C. larninata) is smooth 

 and glossy, semi - transparent, yellow - brown in the 

 upper half deepening to ruddy - brown below. The 

 whorls are more rounded than in the other species, 

 and the teeth in the pillar are stronger. There are 

 three or four plaits or folds within the outer lip, 

 which are visible through the shell. The oblong 

 clausilium has a deep marginal notch near the base. 

 The lentrth of the shell is two-thirds of an inch. 

 Although Ave must call it a local species it is widely 

 distributed over England and Wales from Northum- 

 berland to North Devon and the Channel Islands ; it 

 also occurs in Perthshire. It feeds upon mosses and 

 the germinating spores of lichens, etc., which abound 

 on tree-trunks. Ash 'and beech are its favourite trees, 

 especially beech, whose trunks it ascends at evening, 

 spending the day — except in wet weather — in the 

 angles between the roots. There appears to be a pro- 

 tective value in the shape, size, and tint of their shells, 

 in spring-time, at least, when in their first journeys up 

 the trunk the}^ are more exposed to the scrutiny of 

 birds. At this time the brown envelopes of the beech 

 buds are falling in millions and stick on bark and 

 moss, and as these exactly resemble the laminata 

 shells birds in searching for the latter must have a 

 trying time. In the angles between the roots numbers 

 of these envelopes gather and persist for months; 

 there also under these G. laminata will be found 

 gregarious. The eggs are described by Bouchard- 

 Chantereaux as of enormous size when compared with 

 the animal, to be even larger than the mouth of the 

 shell, and to number about a dozen. Deposited in 

 August or September, the}^ hatch in three weeks, and 



