140 THE CYPRESSES. 



Up from the ground like the moss-covered roof of an 

 ancient farm-house. Here stands another, grim and 

 solitary, with a gnarled and twisted trunk upholding 

 a close-reefed sail of bright green foliage. And there 

 is a little group of them, kneeling together toward 

 the east — like penitent pilgrims — yet showing by 

 their defiant limbs, which are bent and knotted like 

 the arms of wrestling giants, that although the proud 

 west wind has brought them to their knees, still their 

 spirit is not bent, and that they continually throw 

 back his challenge, and will never yield their ground 

 till the last green leaf has withered on their scant and 

 flattened tops. 



In the midst of all this mingling of the beautiful 

 and the picturesque is the home of a very humble 

 but ver>' interesting mollusk, the Point Cypress snail, 

 Helix {Ai^w?ita) DiipetitJwiiarsi^ Desh., Du-pet-i-thou- 

 ar'-si, shown in Fig. 126. During the summer 



months I have sought 

 them under the old cyp- 

 resses, and have found 

 them quietly sleeping 

 ^^^- "^- under old logs, behind 



pieces of loose bark, among the twigs forming a 

 wood-rat's nest, and in other out-of-the-way places. 

 Many empty shells also I found, to my great regret, 

 for each one had a hole in the side or near the apex, 

 showing that the occupant's life had been violently 

 taken. For this act of vandalism the blue-jays were 

 evidently responsible, and even while I was collect- 

 ing my few specimens, these saucy birds stonned and 

 scolded in the trees, as if I, and not they, was the 

 real robber. I verily fear that these reckless maraud- 

 ers will speedily rob Cypress Point of one of its chief- 

 est attractions. 



