SNAILS. 339 



be endowed with intelligences for effecting inten- 

 tions, of which we have no perception, and which we 

 have no capacity for defining. The contemplative 

 man finds pleasure in viewing the ways and artifices 

 of creatures to accomplish a purpose, though he 

 knows not the directing means ; and it fortifies the 

 convictions of the believer, by giving him fresh 

 evidences of the universal superintendence of his 

 Maker, that even the slug and the snail, which are ar- 

 ranged so low in the scale of creation, are yet, equally 

 with all, the object of his benevolence and care. 



Connected with this subject of snails, a circum- 

 stance that took place in this neighbourhood is 

 brought to my remembrance, which discovered yet 

 latent in a few of us, notwithstanding our boasted 

 enlightenment, some leaven of the superstition of 

 darker ages ; and that any occurrence, not the event 

 of every coming day, may be made a subject of 

 wonder by the ignorant, and a means for the artful 

 to deceive the credulous. A little banded snail 

 (helix virgata) is a very common species on most 

 of our arid, maritime pastures, and the sheep-downs 

 of many inland places. It happened, from some 

 unknown cause, that those inhabiting a dry field 

 in an adjoining parish were in one season, a few 

 years ago, greatly increased, so as to become an 

 object of notice to a few, then to more, till at length 

 this accumulation was noised about as a superna- 

 tural event. The field was visited by hundreds 



Z2 



