168 THE MOLLUSKS OF OUR CELLARS. 
understand the figure it must be borne in mind that the 
remaining half of this transverse row is similar to the half 
figured, and that all the transverse rows are alike. Thus 
our figure gives as good an idea of the tongue as if the 
whole hundred rows of eighty-five teeth each were given. 
No wonder the possessors of all these teeth have a reputa- 
tion for voracity and that their presence is dreaded in 
kitchen gardens. 
Our cellar mollusks are active all the year round, owing 
to the milder and more equal climate of their. abode. They 
do not hibernate like their brethren of the fields and woods. 
Their soft shell-less body gives them little protection trom 
their enemies. Like all animals so defenceless they would 
soon lecome exterminated had they not great powers of 
reproduction. They lay eggs several times during the year, 
and in such numbers that a couple of them will lay as 
many as six hundred in a year. These eggs are gelatinous, 
semitransparent and globular, sometimes attached together 
like a rosary. They are remarkably tenacious of vitality, 
so much so that they resist the greatest extremes of temper- 
ature. They have even been shrunk and dried in a furnace 
and kept for years in this state, yet still have developed their 
young upon being restored to moisture. The young animal 
emerges from the egg in about ‘a month, and when two 
months old begins to reproduce its kind, though not itself 
arrived at more than half its greatest size. 
Only one species of our cellar mollusks is furnished with 
un external well developed shell. The others are what are 
commonly *nown as slugs. They have, however, under the 
skin of the forepart of their body, called the mantle, a rudi- 
mentary shell, either in grains of calcareous matter or in a 
regular calcareous plate. This plate was formerly supposed 
to have great medicinal properties, and has been said to be a 
sovereign remedy for almost all the ills that flesh is heir to. 
The whole surface of their body is constantly lubricated 
by a watery fluid. They also have the power of secreting a 
