VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. JSQ 



same species. As for rock-shells in particular, they come in to me in greater 

 numbers, than I could ever have imagined. And I can assure you, that of near 

 50 species, I have now by me, found in this county alone, not any one can be 

 sampled by any sea, fresh- water, or land- snail, that I have or ever saw. So 

 that you see I have still good reason to doubt of their original, besides many 

 other arguments that my observations about fossils aftbrd, and which you may 

 possibly one day see. And that there are the elegant representations of even 

 bivalve- shells, which never owed their original to any animal, I can demon- 

 strate ; and think none, that have considered the thing with me, yet have 

 denied. But whether all be so or no, I choose this method as the most con- 

 vincing, viz. to give a comparative view. 



Some General Queries concerning Land and Fresh Water Snails. 



1. Whether there are other shell-snails at land than turbinate ? — 2. Whether 

 this kind of insect are truly androgyna, and equally participate of both sexes, as 

 Mr. Ray first observed; and whether both of them which shall be found in the 

 act of venery, do accordingly spawn, or lay those perfectly round and clear 

 eggs, so frequently to be met with in the surface of the earth and in the water 

 too; and the circumstances of those eggs hatching? — 3. Whether the way of 

 fattening snails, in use amongst the Romans, that is, to make little paved 

 places encircled with water, be not also very expedient in order to the tme 

 noting the manner of their generation ? — A. What light the anatomy of this 

 kind of insect may give to the rest ? — 5. Whether the black spots, observable 

 in the horns of some snails, are eyes as some authors affirm, and not rather 

 parts equivalent to the antennas of other insects ; as the flat and exceeding thin 

 shape, also the branched horns, in other species of snails seem to confirm ? — 

 6. Whether the coccinea sanies, which some of our water-snails freely and 

 plentifully yield, be not a saliva, rather than an extravasated blood. The like 

 may be thought of the juice of the purple-fish, now out of use, since the great 

 plenty of cochineal ? — 7. In what sort of snails are the stones mentioned by the 

 ancients, to be found ? And whether they are not to be found (in such as yield 

 them) at certain times of the year ? And whether they are a cure for a quartan ; 

 or what other real virtues they have ? — 8. What medicinal virtues snails may 



1. Probably not. 



2. Each individual appears to be truly androgynous, and it is probable that each deposits the eggs 

 here mentioned. 



5. Uncertain. 



8. Common snails have long been considered as restorative in hectic cases, and the larger snail or 

 pomatia particularly so. 



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