IN A SNAILERY. 25 



the fiercest of all their race, and one might be excused for 

 quoting : 



"But he lay like a warrior taking his rest 

 With his martial cloak around him." 



Snails are found in the most barren deserts and on the 

 smallest islands all over the globe, reaching to near the line 

 of perpetual snow on mountains, and restricted only by the 

 arctic boundary of vegetation. There is a great difference 

 between the snails of the tropics and those of high latitudes 

 size, number of species in a given district, and intensity 

 of color decreasing as you go away from the equator; but 

 this statement must be taken in a very general sense. * 

 Different quarters of the globe are characterized by special 

 groups of land mollusks as of other animals thus, achati- 

 nella, with 300 species, is confined to the Sandwich Islands. 

 But helix the true snail with its many subgenera and 

 2000 species, is absolutely cosmopolitan. The fresh-water 

 forms, also, are spread everywhere, except in Australia, and 

 flourish in cold countries, pupa having the hardihood to live 



* Mr. A. R. Wallace's late work, " Tropical Nature," contained a long series 

 of observations upon the colors of terrestrial mollusks among other animals. 

 In two articles in " Science News," vol. i., pp. 52 and 84, Mr. Thomas Bland 

 studied Wallace's principles in their application to American snails, and found 

 that color is a matter of less account than it has hitherto been considered to be. 



