318 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



we had occasion to allude to the wonderful property 

 possessed by members of the lizard family of restoring 

 a lost tail ; if any one, reading that statement, has 

 been disposed to receive it with a smile of incredulity, 

 how shall we hope to induce that person to believe 

 that any other animal in Creation is endowed with the 

 still more extraordinary privilege of reproducing a 

 head? We have often heard of the impossibility of 

 "putting an old head on young shoulders," but we 

 learn from the experiments of Spallanzani that the 

 resources of the apple snail are actually equal to the 

 rare difficulty of putting on a new head after the 

 absolute removal of the old one, and this, he tells us v 

 is accomplished in the course of a few months. 



The Shrub Snail (Helix arbustorwri) is not generally 

 distributed ; we have found it plentifully among nettles 

 by the road-side and near water in the village of South 

 Harting, and elsewhere in the valley ; but, although in 

 other localities it is said to occur at a great elevation, 

 we have never met with one here on the hill. Of the 

 White Snail (Helix pulchelld), on the contrary, we have 

 collected all our specimens under fragments of chalk 

 in the Park and on East Harting Down. The Rock 

 Snail (Helix lapicida) is a common species with a 

 depressed and carinated shell, in shape not much 

 unlike a double convex lens, and is often found in 

 wet weather ascending the smooth trunks of the young 

 beech trees in the Park. The Cheese Snail (Helix 

 obvoluta) is such a local species, that it is supposed to 

 have been accidentally introduced here at no very 

 distant date. As an inhabitant of Ditcham Wood, 

 near Buriton, it was first discovered by Dr. Lindsay, 

 at one time a resident in the neighbourhood. We 

 have found it there also among moss at the roots of 

 hazel ; and we have a keen recollection of the fact 

 that the pleasure with which we picked up our first 

 specimen was considerably damped by a sudden deluge 

 of rain, from which we found it impossible to escape. 



