EGGS OF SNAILS. 131 



nerves are not here shown ; h is one of the larger 

 horns partially inverted ; c is the retractor muscle ; d, 

 the nerve folded up ; e, the muscular tube inverted like 

 the finger of a glove. To insist on the fitness and ex- 

 quisite simplicity of such an apparatus — to endeavour 

 to enforce the exemplification it displays of design, in- 

 volving the wisdom and power of an Almighty framer, 

 — or to show how His care in thus providing these 

 beings with the most sensitive and delicate organs, 

 both of sight and touch, and in endowing them with 

 the power of concealing and protecting them from in- 

 jury, may well be deemed superfluous. To every re- 

 flective mind, the structure of the apparatus, the arrange- 

 ment of its mechanism, and the purposes to which it 

 is adapted, will not fail to speak, and that more elo- 

 quently and forcibly than the most eminent naturalist. 



The eggs of snails are usually rounded, tolerably 

 large, and of a white colour : at first they are a little 

 glutinous, especially so in the species which drop them 

 one after another, and in the form of a chaplet. They 

 are frequently deposited one by one, or in an irregular 

 mass, in holes which the animal excavates in a soft 

 earth, more usually in natural cavities, fractures more or 

 less deep in the ground, in the holes of trees, rocks, or 

 old walls ; but generally in places where drought cannot 



