Natural-History Notes. 9225 
upon snakes, though it is not at all improbable that they may some- 
times pounce upon an unwary eel. 
3. A thick Cactus-like Euphorbia, whose specific name I cannot 
just now recall, is cultivated in patches at the Pescodores. It is cut 
in pieces and used by the China women to give a gloss to their hair. 
Its milk is applied to burns to allay the pain. 
To conclude with a few words on more interesting facts I have ob- 
served with reference to shells in this locality. There is a flat Pla- 
norbis-like species of Helix frequently found under stones and at the 
bottom of old walls. The live shells of this species have always, so 
far as I have observed, their lip missing, whereas those found dead 
have nearly always an entire lip. I have procured them under stones 
attended by a black Carabus (beetle), and I thought that perhaps the 
shells had been dragged there by the beetles for the purposes of 
food, and in this conjecture I felt confirmed by finding that, when the 
beetles and shells were confined together in a tin box, the latter were 
frequently bitten and the mollusk destroyed. But on the lower parts 
of walls, when they occur in this mutilated state, the beetles cannot 
reach them ; and even when under stones, in this state, the mollusks 
appear always to be intact, as also the rest of the shell. Perhaps 
therefore the thick rim-lip from some cause is cast off by the animal 
during its winter hybernation, to be renewed again in summer. 
Again, in a black fresh-water shell (Melania sp.), which occurs in 
abundance, at this rainy season, in almost every stream, the apex is 
always broken off. I thought at first that it might be owing to the 
force of the stream dashing them against the rocks, but on examining 
some hundreds of all sizes, down to the very smallest, I found that 
the lips of the shell, which were very delicate, remained intact; and 
also, in following the streams to their sources, I observed that those 
found in the higher levels were injured quite in the same way with 
those found in the lower. The cause I therefore concluded was 
traceable to some other source. I narrowly inspected several shells, 
and they presented a perforated appearance near the apex, which is 
carried in broken patches and tortuous lines over a great part of the 
surface of the rest of the shell in older specimens. It is hard to detect 
the cause of this rot, but I should think it was the work of some minute 
worm or animalcule invisible to the eye. I observe that this eroded: 
or decorticated apex is affirmed of most of the genus Melania, and 
that Bates, in the ‘ Amazons’ (vol. i. p. 139), notes the peculiarity as 
MO SOLIS 3A 
