Mad Dogs. 31] 
* It may be considered,’ he says, ‘as a local species ; but is found 
in prodigious abundance in some sandy or barren stony situ- 
ations, most plentifully near the coast, especially about Whitsand 
Bay, Cornwall, and in the south of Devonshire, where it is be- 
lieved they contribute not a little to fatten the sheep, the ground 
being covered with them.’ This snail occurs also abundantly in 
the neighbourhood of Bristol and county of Somerset. We wit- 
nessed ourselves in a field belonging to Capt. Parish, at Timsbury, 
a few years since, an innumerable accumulation of them. On 
approaching heat they are observed to leave their hiding-place 
near the roots of grass, crawling upon the leaves and plants near 
it, and thus become visible to the superficial observer. From 
this remark of Montagu, and the well-known fact that snails 
furnish much nourishing matter, it would be perhaps best for the 
farmer belonging to the field at Tockington to turn into it a flock 
of sheep, which would seon crush the snails in eating them with 
the grass, and would doubtless improve thereby. [n this phe- 
nomenon, the philosophic mind will easily trace the provision of 
Nature to render these snails (fattened near the roots of the suc- 
culent grass) a pasture, when parched by the rays of the sun, of 
a most nourishing nature to herbaceous animals. Common ru- 
mour says, ‘ that the snails fell in a great shower, which conti- 
nued upwards of an hour, and that the earth’s surface was co- 
vered, nearly six acres, three inches deep ! !” 
The Gloucester Herald says—“ When we first heard the report 
of a shower of snails having fallen on Thursday week, near Toc- 
kington, in this county, we must confess we suspected the tale to 
be ititended as the test of our credulity ; but the fact has been 
subsequently authenticated by so many “respectable persons, and 
having seen‘from different sources so considerable a number of 
those little curled light-coloured shells, with a streak of brown, 
and containing a living fish inside, we feel confident of the truth 
of the assertion. They fell like a shower of ltail, and covered 
nearly an inch deep, a surface of about three acres, and great 
numbers were distributed to a much greater extent ; shortly after 
this a storm swept so large a quantity into an adjoining ditch, 
that they were taken up in shovels-full, and travellers were fur- 
nished with what quantity they chose to take, and they were soon 
carried into the principal towns of this and the surrounding 
counties!!!” —— 
MAD DOGs, 
In the Medical and Physical Journal, a correspondent states, 
that it has been noticed that the rabies canina affects male dogs 
Anvariably, and never female. 
rAN- 
