148 SEA-SHORE LIFE 



ous trail, and when the beach begins to dry it burrows beneath the 

 surface liead downward, but comes to rest with the aperture of the 



shell toward the surface. 



The Salt-Marsh Snail, fMelainpiis 



t, ^^ bidentatitsj, is the most abundant snail 



i^^^^k iipon the stems of salt marsh grasses 

 y^^W near high tide mark. It ranges from 

 Florida to Cape Cod, and is very com- 

 mon along the coasts of Long Island 



F,g. 109; Right: rEBlWINKLE. n jr T 



Left: SEAWEED SNAIL. ^nU i\ CW d 61 SCy , 



It is a little brown-colored snail of 

 about the size and shape of a coffee berry. The aperture is narrow 

 and elongate, the spire short and blunt, and the forward end of the 

 shell tapers to a blunt point. Some varieties are banded with light 

 and dark brown, while others are plain in color. This snail devours 

 vegetable matter, and is itself preyed upon by minnows, crabs, and 

 numerous sea birds. 



The Periwinkle, (Littorina litturea, Ficjs. 107-109, 111). This 

 snail was probably introduced from the northern coasts of Europe 

 or from Labrador. It is extremely abundant on the rocky shores of 

 England, and is sold in market to the poor in large cities. After 

 being boiled the animal is removed from the shell by a bent pin. 

 In flavor it resembles a clam biit is more delicate. 



The snail was first observed on our shores at the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence in 1855. In 1871 it had reached the New Hampshire 

 coast, and has slowly spread southward arriving at Salem, Massa- 

 chiTsetts, in 1872, Woods Holl, Massachusetts, in 1875, Xew Haven 

 in 1880, and at present it is found even at the western end of 

 Long Island Sound. Wherever it has appeared it has become 

 the most abundant sea-snail within two or three years. On the 

 New England coast it covers the rocks and seaweed between tide 

 limits, and Professor Bumpus gathered more than 2500 of them 

 from a small depression in the rocks at Seaconnet near the mouth 

 of Buzzard's Bay. The shell is thick, heavy, and dark brown, 

 about five-eighths of an inch long, and the spire, although short, 

 is sharp-pointed. The body-whorl is large and the outer edge of 

 the lip is sharp and black in color while its inner (columella) side 

 is faint purple-white. The shell is whorled with numerous shallow 



