90 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
which attained the full size. Now, however, the old stock is no 
more, and last summer I only saw two of those bred in the garden. 
These are of a much darker colour than the imported specimens, 
and in their earlier stages of growth led me to think they were 
hybrid with H. aspersa. In the garden H. pomatia is not nearly 
so destructive as H. aspersa, preferring, as a rule, decaying vege- 
tation; a yellow half-rotten and thin glutinous turnip-leaf is a 
particularly favourite morsel with them.” With regard to the name 
“Apple Snail,” which is sometimes applied to this species, it 
may be appropriate as regards its shape, or with reference to 
the animal’s penchant for apples; but the word “pomatia” is 
derived from “gaya,” an operculum, and not from “ pomum,” an 
apple. 
Helix aspersa. The Common Garden Snail.—Generally dis- 
persed, but much less common on the clay than on the sand and 
chalk. Near the sea a pale variety is very common, and specimens 
of a pale yellowish green have been met with inland at Cowfold.—B. 
A curious circumstance is related in Merrifield’s ‘Sketch of the 
Natural History of Brighton’ (p. 157), which proves that rats are 
as fond of snails as some of the human race, and are quite as 
ingenious in capturing them. The facts were thus narrated to the 
author by Mr. W. W. Attree, of the Queen’s Park:—“ While my 
father was building this house (the villa in Queen’s Park), the 
gardens, laid out beforehand, were colonized on a sudden by crowds 
of rats. That they should travel half a mile from the town was not 
strange, but there was no inhabitant near the unfinished walls, and 
apparently nothing more to tempt their visit than when the spot 
was a bare hillside. The workmen said that the rats came for the 
new plastering; but that, if possibly a donne bouche in a rat’s diet, 
could not, it seemed to me, support them. Besides they could 
scarcely have eaten it without their depredations being discovered 
by the workmen, and this did not take place. While still wondering 
about the matter, I one day watched a rat come out of his hole’ at 
the foot of a mound in the back garden, go some paces without 
perceiving me, climb the stalk of a hollyhock, clear off several 
snails, bring them down in one paw like an armfull, and run with 
them on three legs into his hole. On examining this hole, and 
others as well, I found the inside strewed for some distance with 
broken snail-shells. At that time there was about the place a great 
variety of snails with delicately coloured shells of different sorts. 
