es 
249 HELIX ASPERSA. 
The eges are laid very soon afterseonjugation, in holes excavated at the 
roots of herbage or at the foot of trees, and are covered with a little earth ; 
they vary in number from about forty to one hundred or even more, and 
are clustered together and adherent by a sticky colourless mucus; they 
are roundly oval in shape, about 44 mill. long, and 4 mill. broad, with 
a tough whitish membranous envelope, but lack the firm cretaceous shell 
of the egos of //. pomatia, although the membranous cuticle, which 1s 
composed “of several concentric layers or films, is thickly bestrewn with 
crystals of carbonate of lime. 
he eggs are hatched usually in from fifteen to thirty days, according to 
the weather: the young when excluded bearing a glossy, unbanded, red- 
dish grey shell of one-and-a-half whorls. On beeinning free life, they 
ena acquire the characteristic black or dark coloured banding or 
maculation, and increase slowly in size, attaining before hibernation one- 
third or even one-half of their total growth. On emerging in spring, the 
animals are very voracious and hungr y, and have been known to consume 
their own weight in food, and become so gorged as to be unable to with- 
draw within the shelter of their shell ; srowth, however, is then very rapid, 
and specimens have been known to add thirty millimetres of shell within 
the space of two weeks, and full growth is attaimed within twelve or 
fifteen months from the time of hate hing, but no imdividual in this country 
attains maturity without passing through one period of hibernation. 
Although the bulk of the individuals in this country probably die or are 
destroyed during their second hibernation, yet under favourable cireum- 
stances and in captivity they live to a much greater age, as Mr. R. Welch 
has kept specimens in confinement until they have attained to six, eight, 
and even ten years of age. 
Habits and Habitats.—//eliv aspersu being one of our most highly- 
developed and adaptable European species, 1s, like the white man, a great 
colonizer, and has by human or other agency been accidentally or pur- 
posely transported to almost every quarter of the globe, where its superior 
organization and adaptability have enabled it to maintain its foothold in 
new regions, and, like the European, to gradually dispossess the more 
feeble races which formerly occupied them. 
Though very adaptable and inhabiting a considerable variety of situa- 
tions, it is not a woodland species, but frequents comparatively open 
spaces, more especially affecting gardens, hedgerows, and cultivated land 
around dwelling houses, for which places it displays a marked preference 
and does considerable damage. 
It is also very partial to old walls overgrown with ivy, or shaded with 
a growth of Ceterach officinarum, alders, nettles, weeds, etc., and in such 
places it is sometimes found in extraordinary numbers. 
Though in this country it is not partial to a clayey soil, appearing to 
prefer a calcareous or sandy surface in the vicinity of the coast, yet it is 
by no means confined to such conditions, but lives and prospers under 
varied circumstances quite in the interior of the country. 
H. aspersa is a very powerful animal and has a great reserve of strength, 
judging by the weights it can carry without diminution of speed. On level 
ground when in active motion, a moderate sized individual can travel one 
yard in twelve minutes, or at the rate of a mile in a little more than a 
fortnight ; but its motions are sometimes much more deliberate, and no 
quicker than at the rate of a mile in nineteen weeks. 
