EMMET : ACHATINA ACICULA IX YORKSHIRE. 



clayey, until it reaches the marl ? It evidently does not breed there, 

 but at the roots of grasses. Why and for what reason does it go 

 there at all ? How does it get there ? for its powers seem inadequate 

 for the purpose. It gives us pleasure to find it in the marl, but why 

 not stay amongst the grass? What end is served by its burial 

 in the marl ? We can understand partly the reason why Teredo and 

 Saxicava worm their way into rocks and timbers ; but I see no 

 cause for a delicate Achatina to go beloAv the level where it was born 

 in order to die. I can see no object in it. It spends its life beside 

 highways and in woods, and retires to a mausoleum so deep that if 

 Christians followed its example they would require, not the orthodox 

 * six feet of earth,' but graves about a mile underground ! Why, with 

 all the world before it ' wherewith to choose,' it should deliberately 

 seek a resting place so far removed from its surroundings as a burial 

 vault, is to me very curious. 



All the shells I have found under the surface are perfect shells, 

 with the final volution well formed. What instinct or proclivity, or 

 call it what you please, impels so minute an animal to retire in the 

 decline of life so deep into the earth ? It does not know it will die. 

 It does not know that others die. Why should it hide the secrets of 

 its diminutive little departure by getting back to the unsympathetic 

 stone and marl of the Permian strata ? It dies apparently with great 

 premeditation, adhering to the bare rock. I merely ask for infor- 

 mation, as I cannot answer these questions to my own satisfaction. 



I had written thus far when our Y. X. U. meeting came oft" at 

 Kiveton Park, April 30th. My friend Mr. Roebuck met me at 

 Kiveton Park Station, intent upon Achaibia^ which I had almost 

 guaranteed to find for him. We explored the quarries about the 

 station with no results, the superincumbent mass of clayey soil contra- 

 indicating the finding of the shell we wanted. We then walked to 

 Anston Rocks, examining every place likely, still nothing found : so my 

 friend returned to spoon the canal, and whilst he was doing so, I saw 

 some rocks that looked likely, a few hundred yards from the station ; 

 there I immediately took two Achatin(z^ and gave them, to Mr. 

 Roebuck for exhibition at the meeting at Worksop. I have proved 

 the truth of my favourite theory above given, and propounded many 

 years ago, as to the distribution of the shell, and felt I had 

 accomplished everything I went to Kiveton Park for. We should 

 have been sorry if our 'mission' had egregiously failed, which it seemed 

 likely to do, even so late as 4 o'clock m the afternoon ; but close 

 searching repaid one after all, as it generally does. I suppose it is 

 the first instance of its being recorded of late years at an excursion 

 meeting, and the first time it has been recorded for the extreme south 



July 1885. 



