FOOD, HABITS, ETC. 75 
Common Garden Snail (Helix aspersa) has been 
known to survive in captivity for nine years. 
Less is known about the duration of life among 
the Cephalopoda, but it is said that Rossia does not 
live for more than a year, and the Octopus not more 
than four years. 
As regards tenacity of life, many instances are on 
record of Mollusca surviving under very adverse con- 
ditions (see also ante, pp. 52,53 and 71). Among the 
more remarkable the following may be cited: Speci- 
mens of Litiorina muricata were kept out of water for 
a whole year and then found to be alive. A Pond 
Mussel was sent to Dr. Gray from Australia that 
lived 498 days after it was taken from the pond, 
having in the interim been only twice in water to see 
if it were alive. Some specimens of Ampullaria 
purposely placed in a drawer in Calcutta were found 
alive after five years, despite the warm climate. 
Those molluscs, however, which are most accus- 
tomed to “summer sleep” seem to come off best, 
and Land Snails will stand months and years of 
close confinement without food. 
A specimen of Helix Veatchii, from Cerros Island, is 
said to have existed without food for six years. The 
most striking instance, perhaps, is the well-known 
one of the specimen of Helix desertorum from Egypt, 
that was stuck down on a tablet in the British 
Museum on March 25, 1846, and found on March 7, 
1850, to be alive: released and revived, it lived in 
