440 The Natural History of Selborne 



SNAILS AND SLUGS. 



THE shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the winter in 

 mild weather, and commit great depredations on garden plants, and 

 much injure the green wheat, the loss of which is imputed to earth- 

 worms ; while the shelled snail, the ^EGI/COC, does not come forth at 

 all till about April loth, and not only lays itself up pretty early in 

 autumn, in places secure from frost, but also throws out round the 

 mouth of its shell a thick operculum formed from its own saliva ; 

 so that it is perfectly secured, and corked up as it were, from all 

 inclemencies. The cause why the slugs are able to endure the cold 

 so much better than shell-snails is, that their bodies are covered with 

 slime as whales are with blubber. 



Snails copulate about Midsummer ; and soon after deposit their 

 eggs in the mould by running their heads and bodies under ground. 

 Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as possible 

 before they begin to breed. 



Large, grey, shell-less, cellar-snails lay themselves up about the 

 same time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plain that a 

 defect of warmth is not the only cause that influences their retreat. 

 WHITE. 



SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 



" There the snake throws her enamelVd skin." 



SHAKESPEARE'S Mids. Night's Dream. 



ABOUT the middle of this month (September) we found in a field 

 near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to have 

 been newly cast. From circumstances it appeared as if turned 

 wrong side outward, and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or 

 woman's glove. Not only the whole skin, but scales from the very 

 eyes, are peeled off, and appear in the head of the slough like a 



