28 MOLLUSCA. 
drought, to sustain life, in such a state of retirement 
and suspension of their usual habits, not for a few 
days or weeks only, but even for many years. 
Numerous examples have occurred in which the 
land-shells of distant countries have been brought 
to England, alive but torpid, and have been kept 
shut up in drawers for twelve, eighteen, and even 
twenty months; manifesting no signs of life until 
moistened, when they presently crawled about, and 
began to eat. But the most singular example of 
this protracted sleep on record, is that of Mr. 
Simon’s Snails, which must surely have been the 
veriest Rip Van Winkles among Mollusca. The 
following account is from the Philosophical Trans- 
actions; and the facts seem to have been carefully 
investigated, and well authenticated :— 
“Mr. Stuckey Simon, a merchant of Dublin, 
whose father, a fellow of the Royal Society, and a 
lover of natural history, left to him a small col- 
lection of fossils and other curiosities, had among 
them the shells of some snails. About fifteen 
years after his father’s death (in whose possession 
they continued many years), he by chance gave to 
his son, a child about ten years old, some of these 
snail-shells to play with. The boy put them intoa 
flower-pot, which he filled with water, and the 
next day into a basin. Having occasion to use 
this, Mr. Simon observed that the animals had 
come out of their shells. He examined the child, 
who assured him that they were the same he had 
given him, and said he had also a few more, which 
he brought. Mr. Simon put one of these into 
water, and in an hour and a half after, observed, 
that it had put out its horns and body, which it 
moved but slowly, probably from weakness. Major 
