a. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
bleached in millions on the surface of the ground. Mr. 
E. L. Layard, in a recent number of the London /%ed, men- 
tions a precisely similar case in Mozambique and another 
in Fiji. Why have these species thus suddenly become ex- 
tinct? As far as we can see, there is no cause for their epi- 
demic death. 
Snails, being great eaters, meet their just reward in being 
eaten. The paludine forms are sought after by all sorts of 
water birds, particularly ducks and rails; while the thrush- 
es and other birds crush the shells of the land snails and 
extract their jnicy bodies. The woodland birds, however, 
will not eat the naked-bodied slugs: the slime sticks to 
their beaks and soils their feathers; but the ducks seem to 
have no such dainty prejudices. Some mammals, like the 
raccoons and wood-rats, also eat them; insects suck their 
juices, and the carnivorous slugs prey upon one another. 
Lastly, man, the greatest enemy of the brute creation, em- 
ploys several species of snails for culinary purposes. By 
the Romans they were esteemed a great luxury, and por- 
tions of plantations were set apart for the cultivation of the 
large, edible Helix pomatia, where they were fattened by 
the thousand upon bran sodden in wine. From Italy this 
taste spread throughout the Old World, and colonies of 
this exotic species, survivors of classical “ preserves,” are 
