~~, 
278 HELIX NEMORALIS. 
Reproduction and Development.—Little or nothing is known of 
the details of the conjugation of this species, or of its amorous preludes, 
but it is probable that similar preliminary caresses and blandishments take 
place as described under the preceding species ; congress, however, must 
take place with great facility, as frequently some of the captures are found 
paired in the collecting-box at the close of a day’s excursion, and this 
union will frequently continue for an entire day. ; 
The colouring of Helix nemoralis is regarded by Dr. Beddard as being 
either Sematic and warning, or Epigamic and sexually signalling in character, 
although, probably from an imperfect acquaintance with terrestrial mol- 
lusca, he objects to the use of the term Epigamic in connection with snails 
on account of their hermaphrodite structure ; but Dr. Gain, who has had 
much experience in breeding mollusks, records that he has found that 
individuals kept in confinement evinced a marked preference for mating 
with others of similar colour and markings to themselves. 
The eggs are laid, it is believed, a few days after conjugation, although 
Schumann definitely states that the gestation extends over a period of 
twenty-eight days. ‘They are rounded-oval in shape, three mill. long by 
two-and-a-half mill. in diameter, resembling fowls’ eggs in miniature, pure 
white or yellowish-white in colour, calcareous, opaque, hard, and brittle, 
and usually fifty to eighty in number. 'I'hey are deposited in clusters in 
holes excavated by the mother snail at the roots of grass or other vegeta- 
tion, the foot of walls, etc., and hatch in fifteen to twenty days, the young 
usually becoming adult early in the following year. 
Each particular phase of variation in this species tends to breed true, 
and this is shown not only by the results of the artificial breeding of the 
various varieties, but by the observed fact that particular colours or 
bandings usually preponderate in isolated localities, similar conditions 
inducing a general likeness of the associated shells, although Dr. Arndt 
has declared as a result of his many experiments that only half the off- 
spring of either banded or unicolorous parents resemble their progenitors, 
the other moiety being variously banded, and that even continued inter- 
breeding of identical variations never results in more than seventy-seven 
per cent. of the progeny agreeing with their parents and grand-parents. 
Dr. W. A. Gain, however, who formerly experimented extensively in 
breeding with this species, found that the progeny of banded or unbanded 
forms invariably resembled the parents, breeding quite as true as the 
various races of domestic poultry. 
M. Baudelot also declares that the young of bandless or banded shells 
are always similar to their parents, excepting only those with the formula 
00300, which he avers yield banded and unbanded shells indifferently. 
Dr. Arnold Lang also found that the banding was generally faithfully 
transmitted, but that there was a tendency for the bandings 00300 and 
12345 to appear amongst the progeny of unicolorous parents, but all these 
various irregularities may probably be explicable as atavic and due to the 
influence of more or less remote progenitors on the Galtonian hypothesis. 
Uses.— Helix nemoralis is used as food in many parts of Europe, and 
about Namur in Belgium and in certain parts of France is preferred to 
Helix pomatia or H. aspersa, being considered more delicate. 
As medicine, it at one time occupied a position in the Materia Medica, 
and was the base of certain pharmaceutical preparations. 
