IN A SNAILERY. 25 
the fiercest of all their race, and one might be excused for 
quoting: 
“But he lay like a warrior taking his rest 
With his martial cloak around him.” 
Snails are found in the most barren deserts and on the 
smallest islands all over the globe, reaching to near the line 
of perpetual snow on mountains, and restricted only by the 
arctic boundary of vegetation. There is a great difference 
between the snails of the tropics and those of high latitudes 
—size, number of species in a given district, and intensity 
of color decreasing as you go away from the equator; but 
this statement must be taken in a very general sense.* 
Different quarters of the globe are characterized by special 
groups of land mollusks as of other animals—thus, achati- 
nella, with 3800 species, is confined to the Sandwich Islands. 
But helix—the true snail—with its many subgenera and 
2000 species, is absolutely cosmopolitan. The fresh-water 
forms, also, are spread everywhere, except in Australia, and 
flourish in cold countries, pupa having the hardihood to live 
* Mr. A. R. Wallace’s late work, “‘ Tropical Nature,” contained a long series 
of observations upon the colors of terrestrial mollusks among other animals. 
In two articles in “Science News,” vol.i., pp. 52 and 84, Mr. Thomas Bland 
studied Wallace’s principles in their application to American snails, and found 
that color is a matter of less account than it has hitherto been considered to be. 
