KEW : THE FACULTY OF HOMING IN GASTROPODS. 315 



board to the pot as over known ground.' The pot was climbed 

 quickly, the snail mending its pace as it got nearer. For a little time, 

 it wandered among the weeds in the pot, 'licking them frequently'; 

 crawling at last upon the banana, it fed upon the leaf previously 

 damaged. Next morning the snail, which had eaten but little of 

 the leaf, was resting as before between the column and the i)0t. 

 The author thinks it evident that the snail possessed a ' remarkable 

 sense of direction,' and it must be admitted that his observations 

 apparently indicate something very similar to the mysterious way- 

 finding faculty before mentioned which many domesticated animals 

 exhibit ; but the snail had perhaps lived about the veranda and in 

 the court for a long time, and may have possessed some knowledge 

 of the whole locality, and it should be remembered that it may have 

 been guided largely by scent. The observer states that he could 

 readily detect the peculiar odour of the gnawed banana leaf at a little 

 distance, and admits that the snail may have scented the plant, and 

 that this may have helped to guide it, but adds that scent alone will 

 not explain all the movements of the animal. 



The celebrated observation communicated to Mr. Darwin by 

 Mr. Lonsdale, upon the Roman Snail {Helix pomatia) has no direct 

 bearing upon homing, but is interesting as recording the return of 

 a snail to a special place. 



An accurate observer, Mr. Lonsdale, informs me that he placed a pair of 

 land-snails (Helix pomatia), one of which was weakly, into a small and ill-provided 

 garden. After a short time the strong and healthy individual disappeared, and 

 was traced by its track of slime over a wall into an adjoining well-stocked garden. 

 Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had deserted its sickly mate ; but after an absence 

 of twenty-four hours it returned, and apparently communicated the result of its 

 successful exploration, for both then started along the same track and disappeared 

 over the wall (' Descent of Man,' pp. 262-3 '■> see also Woodward, ' Manual,' p. 11 ; 

 and ' Romanes, Anim. Intell.', p. 27). 



Certain perforations in limestone rocks are said to have been 

 produced by hibernating Helices by gradual erosion,* and have been 

 regarded as the result of a ' constant resort for shelter to the same 

 spot winter after winter ',t but it cannot be supposed that each 

 individual remembers and deliberately returns in the autumn to the 

 perforation in which it hibernated during the previous winter, and 

 Bouchard-Chantereaux observes 'il resulte de nos observations la 

 certitude que les memes loges ne sont pas habitees chaque annee, et 

 que cette habitation n'est que le resultat du hasard qui dirige les 

 individus tantot d'un cote, tantot de I'autre.';}; 



* See, for instance, Proc. Geol. Soc, 1842; 'Ann. Sci. Nat.', 1S61 ; ' Geol. 

 Mag.', 1869 and 1 870, etc. 



t Harting's ' Rambles,' 1875, p. 78. 



+ ' An n. Sci. Nat.' 4^' serie, Zool., xvi (i86i), 208. 

 Oct. 1890. 



