LAND SHELLS. 43' 



prostrate stems with the young leaves, and giving 

 promise of both beauty and sweetness, when these fair 

 flowers shall have died away; and the clusters of 

 leaves, arranged in dense rosettes, of that caustic 

 plant, the Spurge (Euphorbia Portlandica) , were so 

 numerous as to be quite characteristic of the place. 



The terrestrial Mollusca made up by their profusion 

 and variety the paucity of the marine kinds. The 

 common Garden Snail {Helix aspersa) was scattered 

 by myriads on the heaps of loose stones, and on turn- 

 ing over the heaps, they were found as thickly lodged 

 in the interior. The more beautiful Banded Snail 

 {H. nemoralis) was also common and particularly 

 large ; indeed there seems something in this stony 

 island favourable to the development of bulk in its 

 natural history ; for I observed that many of the plants 

 and animals which it yields in common with other 

 places had attained more than wonted size. There 

 was the Heath Snail (H. ericetorum), a little species 

 prettily handed with brown, with a large umbilicus 

 perforating the centre of the shell nearly through and 

 through ; the Silky Snail {H. sericea) — at least I 

 think it was this species, — the shell slightly woolly 

 with a surface of short hairs ; and the Stone Snail 

 {H. lapicida) with a deep umbilicus, and a sharp edge 

 or keel running round each whorl of the shell. The 

 name of Lapicida or Stone-cutter, which Linnaeus 

 conferred on this pretty Snail, refers to no peculiarity 

 of habit that I am aware of, except that of frequenting 

 stony places ; though to be sure there is no other 

 trade so suitable to an inhabitant of Portland, as this 

 of stone hewing, which engages the attention of nine- 



