Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/74

Rh prostrate stems with the young leaves, and giving promise of both beauty and sweetness, when these fair flowers shall have died away; and the clusters of leaves, arranged in dense rosettes, of that caustic plant, the Spurge (Euphorbia Portlandica), were so numerous as to be quite characteristic of the place.

The terrestrial Mollusca made up by their profusion and variety the paucity of the marine kinds. The common Garden Snail (Helix aspersa) was scattered by myriads on the heaps of loose stones, and on turning over the heaps, they were found as thickly lodged in the interior. The more beautiful Banded Snail (H. nemoralis) was also common and particularly large; indeed there seems something in this stony island favourable to the development of bulk in its natural history; for I observed that many of the plants and animals which it yields in common with other places had attained more than wonted size. There was the Heath Snail (H. ericetorum), a little species prettily banded with brown, with a large umbilicus perforating the centre of the shell nearly through and through; the Silky Snail (H. sericea)—at least I think it was this species,—the shell slightly woolly with a surface of short hairs; and the Stone Snail (H. lapicida) with a deep umbilicus, and a sharp edge or keel running round each whorl of the shell. The name of Lapicida or Stone-cutter, which Linnæus conferred on this pretty Snail, refers to no peculiarity of habit that I am aware of, except that of frequenting stony places; though to be sure there is no other trade so suitable to an inhabitant of Portland, as this of stone hewing, which engages the attention of