82 TROPICAL DROUGHTS. 



and disappears, and the land is to a great extent denuded of 

 its vegetable covering. The Snails of these regions, therefore, 

 bury themselves, as the dry season comes on, in the sand or 

 under stones, and covering the mouth of the shell with a sort of 

 parchment epiphragm, like that formed by our own Snails in 

 their winter retreat, remain in a torpid state till the return of a 

 more genial season. 



Mr. Lovell Eeeve, in his great work on shells, the " Concho- 

 logia Iconica," gives a curious anecdote illustrative of the peculiar 

 character of the sterile region west of the Andes, and its effect on 

 the Snail tribes. In 1829, when Mr. Cuming, the famous col- 

 lector of shells, arrived at Copiapo, where the large Bulimi are 

 to be found in considerable numbers, he desired one of the soli- 

 tary inhabitants of the place to obtain for him as many of the 

 living animals as he could get. When the native returned with 

 his Snails, Mr. Cuming was surprised to find that there was 

 scarcely one living specimen amongst them all, and reproved the 

 man accordingly. " Only wait till the dews come," said the 

 man, " and they will be all alive again." And when Mr. Cu- 

 ming rejoined, " The dews ! I suppose you mean the rains," the 

 poor fellow, with a look of astonishment, asked what he meant. 

 He was a sexagenarian, but he had never heard of rain before ! 



In the British Islands there are in all between fifty and sixty 

 species of the Snail family. The largest of our British Snails 

 is the famous Helix pomatia, the Eoman Snail, as it is sometimes 

 termed, from the high estimation in which it was held by the 

 Eoman epicures. It is considerably larger than II. aspersa, more 

 faintly coloured, and confined with us almost exclusively to the 

 chalk districts of the south of England. On the Continent, 

 however, it takes the place of our Common Snail, and in the 

 wine countries does great injury, by its partiality for the buds 

 and tender leaves of the vine. Our prettiest species is, without 

 doubt, H. nemoralis, which is either yellow, chocolate-brown, or 

 flesh-coloured, and abounds in every hedge and ditch-bank, 

 throughout the spring and summer. It is often beautifully 

 variegated in the neighbourhood of the sea. We have a number 

 of the shells of this Snail now before us ; and sure we are there 

 is no young lady living, who, if she were told that these shells 

 were brought by some celebrated naturalist from China or Japan, 

 would not pronounce them beautiful. Another of our widely- 



