WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



More or less wholly dependent on moisture, the 

 young snails at once seek out their retreats, and 

 must be looked for under leaves, logs, and loose 

 stones in the woods and pastures. Most Ameri- 

 can snails are solitary and belong to the forests, 

 though the civilization of the country has caused 

 noticeable changes in this respect, and has caused 

 not only a spread of some species, but has induced 

 them to come into the open more than was for- 

 merly natural to them. Look for them at the roots 

 of fern-tufts, lurking in the moss beside mountain 

 brooklets, hiding in the crevices of rocky banks 

 and old walls, crawling over the mud at the edge 

 of swampy pools, creeping in and out of the cran- 

 nies of bark on aged trees, or clinging to the under 

 side of the leaves. Some forms are so minute that 

 they might be encircled by the letter o in this print, 

 yet you will soon come to perceive them amid the 

 grains of mud adhering to the lower side of a soaked 

 chip or exposed by an overturned log. 



For fresh-water species, various resorts are to 

 be searched. Go to the torrents with rocky bot- 

 toms for the paludinas and periwinkles (Melania) ; 

 to quiet brooks for physas and coil-shells; for lim- 

 neas to the reeking swamps and stagnant pools 

 in the wet ooze. I know no better place in the world 



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