Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/112

90 which attained the full size. Now, however, the old stock is no more, and last summer I only saw two of those bred in the garden. These are of a much darker colour than the imported specimens, and in their earlier stages of growth led me to think they were hybrid with H. aspersa. In the garden H. pomatia is not nearly so destructive as H. aspersa, preferring, as a rule, decaying vegetation; a yellow half-rotten and thin glutinous turnip-leaf is a particularly favourite morsel with them." With regard to the name "Apple Snail," which is sometimes applied to this species, it may be appropriate as regards its shape, or with reference to the animal's penchant for apples; but the word "pomatia" is derived from "πωμα," an operculum, and not from "pomum" an apple.

Helix aspersa. The Common Garden Snail.—Generally dispersed, but much less common on the clay than on the sand and chalk. Near the sea a pale variety is very common, and specimens of a pale yellowish green have been met with inland at Cowfold.—B. A curious circumstance is related in Merrifield's 'Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton' (p. 157), which proves that rats are as fond of snails as some of the human race, and are quite as ingenious in capturing them. The (acts were thus narrated to the author by Mr. W.W. Attree, of the Queen's Park:—"While my father was building this house (the villa in Queen's Park), the gardens, laid out beforehand, were colonized on a sudden by crowds of rats. That they should travel half a mile from the town was not strange, but there was no inhabitant near the unfinished walls, and apparently nothing more to tempt their visit than when the spot was a bare hillside. The workmen said that the rats came for the new plastering; but that, if possibly a bonne bouche in a rat's diet, could not, it seemed to me, support them. Besides they could scarcely have eaten it without their depredations being discovered by the workmen, and this did not take place. While still wondering about the matter, I one day watched a rat come out of his hole at the foot of a mound in the back garden, go some paces without perceiving me, climb the stalk of a hollyhock, clear off several snails, bring them down in one paw like an armfull, and run with them on three legs into his hole. On examining this hole, and others as well, I found the inside strewed for some distance with broken snail-shells. At that time there was about the place a great variety of snails with delicately coloured shells of different sorts.