IN A SNAILERY. 



19 



and periwinkles '(Melania) ; to quiet brooks for physas and 

 coil-shells; for limneas to the reeking swamps and stag- 

 nant pools in the wet ooze. I know no better place in the 

 world for pond-snails than the tule marshes of the Pacific 

 slope, where hundreds of the great graceful Limnea stag- 

 nalis lie among the rotting vegetation, or float upside down 

 at the surface of the still water. But some of the fresh- 

 water mollusks remain most of the time at the bottom, com- 

 ing to the surface only to breathe now and" then ; and to get 

 their shells it is necessary to use a sieve-bottomed dipper, or 



THE SNAILS OF T1IE TOURENTS. 



some sort of dredge. When the water becomes low they 

 bury themselves in the mud; it is therefore always profit- 



