314 KEW : THE FACULTY OF HOMING IN GASTROPODS. 



a group of more than a dozen beneath a broken flagstone leaning obliquely 

 against the greenhouse wall. Some were half grown, some adults, all cemented 

 to the stone about nine to twelve inches above the ground. Scratching a ring 

 upon the stone round the group, I procured some white paint, and having marked 

 the shells of seven of the most robust, replaced the slab. At 10 p.m. the same 

 evening three of the marked individuals were absent and could not be traced. 

 The next morning all the seven marked shells were again fixed to the stone, and 

 all were within the ring. Thus three, at least, had been out to browse and had 

 found their way back. At 10 p.m. of that day five marked shells had started for 

 their night's forage, of which two were traced, after much search, to a small jungle 

 of young Caiiipaniila pyramidalis ■ahowS. six feet from the stone. At 10 a.m. of the 

 22nd, six marked individuals were beneath the flagstone, five within the ring and 

 one an inch outside it. Thus, at least, four had found their way back. Whether 

 the absentee had failed to return through breakdown of memory or from having 

 wandered so far that it studied convenience and retired to some nearer corner, or 

 had fallen a victim to an early thrush is doubtful. This trial appears to me 

 conclusive. Results would have shown better if the register had been taken say 

 an hour later at night, for it is probable all the seven went out to feed every 

 night. 



Mr. Ashford tells me that he has also established the fact that 

 H. aspersa will cross a cinder-path to get to its favourite food and 

 return by the same uncomfortable route to its original retreat, 

 when it could easily have found new quarters in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of its supplies ; and this certainly looks like love 

 of home ! 



The observations of Furtado are also upon H. aspersa and were 

 made in 1884.* A house in which the observer lived, in one of the 

 Azores, had a veranda with a flight of steps leading, down to a little 

 court or garden. One morning a snail was observed on the veranda 

 lodged between a column and a pot in which a young banana was 

 growing, and as one of the leaves of the banana had already been 

 damaged, the mollusc was thrown down into the court. Next morning, 

 however, it was recognised in precisely the same position as previously 

 between the column and the pot, having found its way back over a 

 distance of at least six metres. Furtado again threw it into the court, 

 and watched the result. At 9 a.m. the snail was resting on the rail of 

 the staircase having travelled about four metres. In the evening it 

 resumed its march, and by 10 o'clock reached the top of the rail 

 where it stopped ; shortly after midnight it began to travel along the 

 balustrade of the veranda, its course at first being very undecided. 

 It was here turned aside by some fish-scales, but soon regained its 

 previous direction, and as it approached the banana made straight 

 for it. Near the column it fell in with a grooved washing-board, 

 ' which it seemed to remember,' and ' advanced resolutely from the 



* 'Instinct of Orientation in Helix aspe7-sa,' Zool. Sec, Lisbon Mus., Oct. 



27th, 1885 ; transl. Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (5) xvi. 519-20. 



Naturalist, 



