148 SEA-SHORE LIFE 
ous trail, and when the beach begins to dry it burrows beneath the 
surface head downward, but comes to rest with the aperture of the 
shell toward the surface. 
The Salt-Marsh Snail, (Melampus 
bidentatus), is the most abundant snail 
upon the stems of salt marsh grasses 
near high tide mark. It ranges from 
Florida to Cape Cod, and is very com- 
mon along the coasts of Long Island 
and New Jersey. 
It is a little brown-colored snail of 
about the size and shape of a coffee berry. The aperture is narrow 
and elongate, the spire short and blunt, and the forward end of the 
shell tapers to a blunt point. Some varieties are banded with light 
and dark brown, while others are plain in color. This snail devours 
vegetable matter, and is itself preyed upon by minnows, crabs, and 

Fig. 109; Right: PERIWINKLE. 
Left: SEAWEED SNAIL. 
numerous sea birds. 
The Periwinkle, (Littorina littorea, Figs. 107-109, 111). This 
snail was probably introduced from the northern coasts of Kurope 
or from Labrador. It is extremely abundant on the rocky shores of 
England, and is sold in market to the poor in large cities. After 
being boiled the animal is removed from the shell by a bent pin. 
In flavor it resembles a clam but is more delicate. 
The snail was first observed on our shores at the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence in 1855. In 1871 it had reached the New Hampshire 
coast, and has slowly spread southward arriving at Salem, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1872, Woods Holl, Massachusetts, in 1875, New Haven 
in 1880, and at present it is found even at the western end of 
Long Island Sound. Wherever it has appeared it has become 
the most abundant sea-snail within two or three years. On the 
New England coast it covers the rocks and seaweed between tide 
limits, and Professor Bumpus gathered more than 2500 of them 
from a small depression in the rocks at Seaconnet near the mouth 
of Buzzard’s Bay. The shell is thick, heavy, and dark brown, 
about five-eighths of an inch long, and the spire, although short, 
is sharp-pointed. The body-whorl is large and the outer edge of 
the lip is sharp and black in color while its inner (columella) side 
is faint purple-white. The shell is whorled with numerous shallow 
