592 
SNAIL 
the combat continues for a short time, when a re- 
conciliation ensues, and the lovers come together. 
It appears that the animals are stocked with these 
darts at the seasons when they feel inclined to ap- 
proach each other, and that after these combats 
they lay a certain number of semitransparent eggs 
about the size of small peas, in some moist situa- 
tion, generally under the earth, where they lie con- 
cealed till the young snails are brought forth. 
Mr. Montague, in his Testacea Britannica , has 
glanced at this peculiarity in the snail without giving 
much credit to the accounts of other authors respect- 
ing the circumstance. He admits that snails pos- 
sess small testaceous spiculae at certain seasons, but 
seems to doubt their being missile darts, though it 
is natural to suppose the animals are furnished with 
them for the purpose of stimulating each other to 
love, because it is only at that season they are found 
to possess them. £t If such are ever discharged at 
each other,” says this gentleman, “ we have been 
extremely unfortunate in our observations, for in no 
one instance could we ever find the dart pene- 
trated ; though at the time the animals are close 
the point may irritate : but it is neither sufficiently 
strong nor sharp-pointed to penetrate the tough 
skin with which these animals are furnished ; and, 
indeed, the extremely viscid secretion with which 
they are so copiously provided, adheres so strongly 
to these spiculae, when wholly projected from the 
body, that they are for a time held by it. These 
celebrated love-darts are sub-pellucid, white, and 
