LAND SNAILS. 
135 
prominent ribs, which, form strong teeth on the 
free margin. 
H. pomatia is to be met with on the borders 
of copses and woods on a calcareous soil. It is 
found at Sevenoaks, in Kent; Croydon, Keigate, 
and Dorking, in Surrey; in Hertfordshire, Ox¬ 
fordshire, and Wilts; it is common on the Cots- 
wold range. In early spring these snails unite 
for propagation. The eggs are globular, and 
covered with a white opaque skin, and are 
about the size of small peas; these are laid in 
a kind of nest, made in the loose earth, in the 
months of June and July. The eggs are hatched 
in twenty to thirty days, according to the season 
and temperature; when first excluded, the young 
live solely on the egg-cases; at the end of the 
year they are about the size of Helix hispida , 
and arrive at maturity in a little more than a 
year. 
The Apple Snail, on the arrival of the period 
of hybernation, constructs, by the aid of its 
large muscular foot, and a very glutinous secre¬ 
tion, a hole in the ground, just large enough to 
receive the shell; this it lines with dead leaves, 
retires to its hybernaculum, and closes the aper¬ 
ture of the shell with a solid calcareous plate, 
secreted and formed by the mantle; it then 
withdraws considerably within the shell, and the 
more effectually to exclude the cold air, forms 
