A SPRING TROUBLE 



ANY one who looks into the gardener's calendar 

 for the month of March will find that the salient 

 feature of the month's zoology is snails. More 

 lively and arresting animals, it is true, present 

 themselves for observation in the days of early 

 spring. But the gardener's calendar is a com- 

 pilation of a practical turn, and the relations of the 

 snail to the practical economy of the garden in 

 spring are among the considerations that really 

 matter. Just consider the situation. Late in the 

 autumn our mollusc, fat with rich feeding, sought 

 out for himself the dry under side of a stone in 

 rockery or broken wall, well out of the way of 

 draughts, reasonably sheltered from frost and rain. 

 Finding the retreat to his taste, he retired into his 

 shell, and with one operation glued up the front 

 door and attached the whole house to its winter 

 site. With the growth of spring warmth he 

 emerges to find his fat consumed and the demands 

 of a reviving appetite slowly but surely asserting 

 themselves. Slowly but surely is the snail's plan 

 of life. On the first sensation of hunger he does 

 not rush from his bed. He takes a day or two 

 to think of it. But at last, cautiously and tenderly, 

 his " foot " is extruded, and the snail finds that 



