is nothing, When regulated by guns and scare-crows, compared to 

 their services in destroying the myriads of dangerous insects, whose 

 ravages are not easily to be forgotten. 



3. Of Snails. 



In general, snails, whether with or without shells, are not much to 

 be feared, though they live on the leaves of the vine. But there is 

 one kind, the vintager snail, which does severe damage in rainy sea- 

 sons. In the fall it deposits in the ground a great nimiber of eggs, 

 which it conceals with much care ; they are wliite, spherical, covered 

 with a soft, membraneous skin, and united in clusters. These eggs 

 hatch in spring, and at the approach of winter, the snails, several 

 together, hide in holes, and keep in their shells, which they shut with 

 a calcarious operculum, and do not make their appearance until the 

 following spring. They work at night and eat the young shoots to 

 the wood ; in the day, when the atmosphere is dry and warm, they 

 keep under the largest leaves. 



The hedge-hog and the tortoise dev<>ur these snails ;. the former, if 

 caught, is a saleable article for ragouts The snails can be destroyed 

 by means of powdered lime, or rather a dilution of lime sprinkled du- 

 ring the night, when the weather is rainy. 



