“ 
280 HELIX NEMORALIS. 
is common from the height of 1,500 feet fup to the very summit of the 
mountains at about 4,000 feet altitude, the shells at that height being thin 
and delicate, and the formula 00300 being predominant. 
Hf. nemoralis is a light-loving creature, avoiding the dark recesses of 
dense woods and forests, yet it is crepuscular and nocturnal in habit, feeding 
during twihght or through the night, a habit due to the greater freedom 
from enemies at those times ; it-is, however, very susceptible to moisture, 
and though usually snugly secreted through the day and during drought, 
it emerges very quickly after showers or even before rain, so that in certain 
parts of France its appearance is regarded as a reliable indication of im- 
pending storms, the snail being said to crawl higher up the vine-supports 
for heavy and continued rain than for transient showers. 
Fic. 339,—Slime track of Hel/x nemorvalis L., about eighteen eet in length, as observed at 
Clifton, Derbyshire, by Mr. Lionel E. Adams. 
Although the present species has not had the same attention devoted 
to its habits as H. aspersa, there is little doubt that it shares to some 
extent the same love of home, as displayed by usually returning for its 
diurnal siesta to the same shelter day after day, and this is confirmed 
by the track shown (f 339) of the peregrinations of a specimen whose 
wanderings were traced by that careful and precise observer, Mr. Lionel E. 
Adams, and which also shows the peculiar crossing of the outward path 
on the homeward journey that has been so often remarked as characteriz- 
ing those tracks. 
During periods of dry summer weather, the siesta is prolonged, and the 
animal estivates or remains torpid during its continuance, and it is on 
record that one specimen revived after being ; 3+ years in a dormant condition. 
In autumn, it usually retires early for hibernation, but is not a social 
hibernant, like //eliv aspersa, although occasionally a number may be found 
congregated in some suitable and commodious shelter; but each individual 
ensconces itself amongst rubbish in hedge-bottoms, in crevices of walls or 
rocks, or buries its shell in the ground with the mouth upwards and level 
with the surface, forming a thick and slightly caleareous outer epiphragm 
at the mouth of the shell, and as the cold increases in intensity, shrinking 
further and further within the shell, and secreting at short intervals addi- 
tional but thinner epiphragma. 
