Miscellaneous. 489 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

 on the tenacity of life in snails. 



Dear Sir, 



Last year I was told by Mr. Pickering that he had procured some 

 foreign Cyclostonice of Argent, wliich he kept some weeks, and then 

 resuscitated by placing them in water ; also that he had received a 

 whole basketful of Madeira snails, of various s])ecies, from Mr. Wol- 

 lastou, which after several months' fasting and captivity were revived 

 in the same manner. Naturalists, who make foreign tours, seldom 

 have the time or means of killing and cleaning large numbers of land- 

 shells ; it is therefore satisfactory to know that, with a little care in 

 })ackiug, a collection may be brought home alive and attended to at 

 leisure. The following particulars, communicated to me by jNIr. Wol- 

 laston, will show to what extent this may be done : — 



" 25 Thurloe Square, Brompton, Oct. 19, 1850. 



" During my residence in the island of Porto ^a.\\to, from April 27 

 to May A, 1S48, I collected a large quantity of Helices peculiar to 

 the spot, and having placed a small set of each, as types, in separate 

 ])ill-boxes (for examination by Mr. Lowe on my return to ^Madeira), 

 the rest were killed. These types were named the following week 

 by Mr. Lowe ; and as I had to leave immediately for England, I had 

 no time to kill the specimens. On my return home the boxes were 

 placed in empty drawers of my insect-cabinet, since which, up to the 

 present time (Oct. 19, 1850), they had never been opened, or if 

 opened, the specimens had certainly never been taken out. I con- 

 cluded of course that they were dead long ago, thinking it more than 

 ])robable that they never survived the voyage to England, and there- 

 fore, a fortiori, that two years and a half in dry pill-boxes was quite 

 sufficient to remove all traces of existence. However, hy immersion 

 in cold water, I find that many of them are still alive ; and though a 

 large proportion have perished in this long interval, yet I have Ibur- 

 teen specimens now before me crawling about with the greatest ac- 

 tivity. Thirteen of these are of the same species, viz. Helix {Caro- 

 coUa) jiopilio, Lowe ; and the other Helix tectiformis, Lowe, both 

 collected May 1st, 1848, on the Ilheo de Baxo, a small limestone island 

 off the south-western extremity of Porto Santo. And that there can 

 be no possible mistake in this statement is made perfectly clear by 

 the fact that Helix pupilio is found in no other locality, and that 

 May 1st, 1848, was the only occasion on which I have ever visited that 

 remarkable rock. I regret that many of the types placed in the pill- 

 boxes at the time of collecting were (purposely) dead specimens, as 

 being sufficient for the mere discrimination of the species. 



" I may also mention that I possess a whole bagful of the beau- 

 tiful little Helix tvrricula, Lowe, collected on the Ilheo de Cima 

 (another and smaller rock, off Porto Santo,) on the 24th of April 

 1849, — all of which, I find by immersion, are alive, though the dry 

 and dusty bag in which thev have been inclosed has never been 



