HELIX POMATIA. 217 
once commence to feed upon any suitable food that may be accessible, and 
attain a size sometimes considerably superior to that of //. hispida before 
retiring into their winter quarters for hibernation. 
On reappearing in the warm days of spring they grow very rapidly and 
according to the careful observations of Dr. W. A. Gain the shell is usu: lly 
partially or entirely buried 1 in the soil mouth downwards when its increase 
takes place; but specimens living on very sandy soils often effect their 
erowth above eround, although such shells are always dwarfed, and never 
attain the size of those whose erowth is made below the surface. 
Full growth is usually attained within the year, although some individuals 
progress much more slowly, taking two or more years to reach maturity. 
The life period of this species is about seven or eight years, though it 
is probable that in a state of nature the bulk of the individuals perish 
long before attaining that age. 
Food and Habits.—//elixv pomatia is a somewhat geoplhilous species, 
seldom climbing trees or walls to any great height ; it frequents woods, 
hedges, old walls, quarries, and uncultivated places, preferring a calcareous 
eround, though found also on sandy and other soils, but in France 
lives by preference in gardens, fields, and vineyards. 
Though an inhabitant chiefly of the lower-lying cultivated lands, yet it 
ascends the mountains up to 5,000 feet, living in the pine forests quite to 
the limit of trees and does not perceptibly decrease in size with the greater 
altitude at which it lives. 
In the gardens it is not nearly so destructive as some other species, 
preferring as a rule decaying vegetation ; a yellow, half rotten glutinous 
turnip leaf being said to be a particularly favourite morsel. According to 
Puton, it lives upon fallen fruits, fungi, and various herbs. 
In captivity it thrives greatly when fed on lettuce or vine leaves, but 
readily devours cabbage, horse-radish, French beans, nettles, dandelion, 
docks, and other plants, and will feed freely upon cooked meats. 
On the approach of the cooler weather 
of the autumnal season, the adult snails, 
now fat and well nourished, seek out 
their winter quarters, sometimes nestling 
beneath dead leaves, or more usually 
burrowing some inches into the ground, 
though occasionally they pass the winter 
with only the shell buried with the aper- 
ture level with the surface and directed 
upwards; when suitably ensconced a 
thick, convex, and chalky-white  epi- 
phragin' or lid is secreted exactly fitting 
the aperture of the shell, and within this 
a membraneous second epiphr agin 1s soon Fic. 294.— Helix pomatia with the mouth 
afterwards formed. The fitting iat Shee hee 
outer calcareous lid is so accurate that hibernating specimens have been 
immersed in sea-water for a period of twenty days without suffering injury 
or apparent inconvenience. 
The snail thus lies snugly in a torpid condition until spring, when it 
pushes off the epiphragm, and breaks its winter sleep, usually im April or 
1 Monog. i., p. 129. 
