Beautiful shells

by H. G. Adams

This, then, is a shelled mollusk of the third class, called Gasteropoda, according to the system of the French naturalist Cuvier. It has a distinct head, which, like the hinder part of the body, which we may call a tail if we like, projects, when the creature is in motion, considerably from the shell; it is also furnished with what we commonly call horns, naturalists say tentacles, from the Latin tento—trying, or essaying; with these the creature, as it were, feels its way; being extremely sensitive; they answer the purpose of organs both of sight and touch; put your finger slowly towards one of them, and you will observe that, even before contact, it begins to retract, or draw in, as though sensible of the approach of some opposing body, as it no doubt is. These horns of the snail, then, are its feelers—eyes to the blind, fingers to the fingerless; so God provides for his creatures all that may be necessary for their existence, and compensates for the deprivation of one sense or organ, by some admirable contrivance which meets the necessities of the case.[1]

[1] It appears likely that the little knobs at the end of the snail’s feelers, are, as some naturalists assert, in reality eyes; if so, we were wrong in calling the creature blind. Yet is their position and construction so different from organs of sight generally, that they serve rather to strengthen than invalidate the above observations. The number of the horns varies in different kinds of snails from two to six, and some have none at all. These tentacles, when present, are always situated above the mouth; some of them have the knobs at the base, others at the sides; and it has been conjectured that they may be organs of smell, as well as of sight and touch.

THE COMMON SNAIL

Is called by naturalists Helix aspersa, the generic name being derived from a Greek word signifying spiral, and having reference to the shape of the shell; the plural is Helices, a term applied to all convoluted or twisted shells, which terminate in a point like a church spire: a spiral-shelled fossil is called a helicate. The specific name comes from the Latin asper—rough, whence also our English word asperity—roughness, and several others. The Helicidæ, or Helix family, is that which includes the land shell Snails and the naked Slugs, and in this family there are several genera; they are distinguished from the shelled water Snails, both sea and river, by having a different breathing apparatus, and some other points of internal construction which it is not necessary to describe here.

The Common Snail has a mouth, of which it makes good use, as market gardeners well know, and yet this mouth is not furnished with teeth; instead of these, the upper lip, which is of a horny texture, is what is called dentated, from the Latin dentus—a tooth, that is, divided or separated, so as to present somewhat the appearance of a row of teeth in the jaw; this lip is of an arched form, and appears to be a very serviceable kind of instrument to Mr. Helix aspersa, who, if his character be not aspersed, is very destructive to all sorts of greenery. The lower lip is divided only in the middle, where there is an opening of some width: it is not horny, like the upper one.

Snails lay eggs, which are about the size of very small peas; they are soft, and of a whitish colour. Being semi, that is, half, transparent, or clear, their contents can be partly seen; and in those of a water Snail, deposited against the side of a glass bottle, the young were detected with partially formed shells upon their backs.

To shew how tenacious they are of life, it has been mentioned that Mr. S. Simon, a Dublin merchant, had a collection of fossils and other curiosities left him by his father; among these were some shells of Snails, and fifteen years after the collection came into his possession, his son had the shells to play with, and placed them in a basin of water, when lo! out came the slimy bodies and knobbed horns of several of the Gasteropods, no doubt hungry enough after their long sleep.

We all know that our Common Snails hybernate, or sleep through the winter. As soon as the chills of autumn are felt, they seek out some snug crevice in an old wall, or burrow in the earth, or congregate beneath garden pots, roots of trees, thatched roofs, or in any hole or corner that may be convenient, and then throwing a kind of temporary skin, like a drum head, which naturalists call operculum, over the opening of their shells, and sticking themselves fast to the sides of their refuge, or to each other, they sleep away, careless of frosts and tempests.

A moist and rather warm state of the atmosphere seems most congenial to the land Snails, some species of which are found in all countries, except those where the most intense cold prevails. Generally speaking, they do not like dry heat, and to escape from it will get under stones, and into other cool places, from whence a shower brings them forth in such numbers, the smaller species especially, as to lead to the popular belief that it sometimes rains Snails.

These Gasteropods, although extremely injurious to vegetation, must not be regarded as worse than useless, as they commonly are; besides furnishing food for several wild, as well as domesticated, birds, they are no doubt a nourishing article of diet for man. The Romans had their cochlearia, where Snails were regularly fed and fattened for the table; and the French at the present day their escargotoires, or Snailery, for the same purpose; some of the Snails so kept, attain an immense size, as well they may if fed, as by the Romans, on new wine and meal. Many poor persons, especially those who are consumptive, might no doubt derive much cheap sustenance and benefit from using the larger species of Helicidæ, which might be collected from hedges and gardens as food. Why should they not eat those as well as the marine mollusks, such as Oysters, Cockles, Whelks, etc.