;H) Transactions. 



to be here, Vitrina peUucida, the glass shell. Something moving 

 on the damp side of the stone catches your eye. What are these 

 things ] like, but far smaller than, grains of rice ; and they are 

 moving along one after another in a hair's-breadth fissure in the 

 stone. Pick them up with great care, using your tweezers, and 

 on examination, under a good lens, which had better be done at 

 home, yon will find reason to marvel how Nature moulds, by 

 means of so soft a substance as the " mantle" of a snail, a tiny 

 montiment, exquisitely sculptured, and solid and durable as 

 marble itself. And this on such a minute scale. It would take 

 fully two hundred of these shells, Carychium viinimum, to cover 

 the surface of one square inch — yet see how wonderfully their 

 delicate convolutions are chased and carved into spiral twistings 

 and grooves and furrows innumerable. There comes another 

 small traveller with his house on his back, not so ornamental a 

 dwelling as the last carried, but still well worth study. This 

 shell is of a peculiarly rich oily gloss (Zua luhrica) and a rich 

 tawny brown, unlike any other land shell of ours in these two 

 respects. How well it contrasts with the grey tones of the stone 

 and the pure white of Carychivm. 



We noticed, in passing, just now the graceful frondlets of a 

 moss, but there are sure to be a dozen species of this lowly, but 

 very lovely, sub-kingdom and its allies, beautifying the borders of 

 the little hollow we are so interested in, and not beautifying 

 earth alone. 



There is a reason for the existence of all life, animal and 

 vegetable, quite apart from our direct needs and caprices. And, 

 without a great deal of brain-racking, we can discern, surely, that 

 one reason for the existence of mosses is to keep the moisture of 

 rain about the roots of herbs and trees, and so, to help, in the 

 long run, to equalise temperature and climate. Mosses are, in 

 fact, a striking example of the power of littles. Look at the 

 long ruddy stems which carry the fruit of this same moss. There 

 is good work for the microscope for many a long winter evening 

 in the examination of the leaves and fruits of the one genus 

 Hypnum, of which this moss is at once a very common and a very 

 lovely type. 



This bit of hunting ground of ours is sure, almost, to have H. 

 triqiietrum, loreum, and perhaps serjjens and molhismm, besides 

 others more or less conspicuous; amongst the roots of which you 

 will very likely find one or two species of the shell Vrrtign, and that 



