12 Our British Snails 



better, when wanting a name for another kind 

 of slug, transposed the initial letters and made 

 Milax ! Vitrina is a sensible and descriptive 

 name, the Latin for glassy, given to a shell like 

 thin glass ; but the Greek Arion recalls either a 

 certain musician or a certain swift steed, neither 

 of whom naturally suggests a slug. For Balea 

 at least four derivations have been suggested — 

 none of them probable. Two facts concerning the 

 life or appearance of a mollusc we should learn 

 from its two names, but this is not the case with 

 Agriolimax agrestis, which is by interpretation 

 "the field slug inhabiting fields." Nor are we 

 helped by the specific name virgata or striped 

 when so many land shells are striped or banded, 

 and still less by terrestris for one land shell when 

 all land shells are terrestrial. 



You would note, however, in this wall-case 

 that the species are not many (a good many of 

 the specimens are varieties, not separate species), 

 and that, therefore, one can collect with the hope 

 of speedily forming a complete collection without 

 that inevitable absence of finality found when 

 one collects postage stamps, or, still more, picture 

 postcards, of which one might secure thousands, 

 only to find that fresh thousands were brought 

 out next year. Here, however, is no impossible 

 ideal of perfection. There are but eighty- 

 two land and forty-five freshwater shells in 

 Britain. 



