| Show POINTS ON SNAILS Y meteoric bat much that la in terestln in their career the smithsonian institution has hit upon something extraordinary in snails the creatures may be slow but they hold the record over all other animals for prolonged vitality under adverse conditions bays the provi-dence journal stories of toads dug out of rocks in which they had been imprisoned for ages are apocryphal but recent discovery has established the credit of this humble mollusk as ab 1 in the tenacity of life only tiie other day a specimen from an island oil the coast of lower cali-fornia in a drawer with part of the collection was found to be alive it had no food or water for more than six years when placed in the box with moist earth it pro-truded its feet began to move about and seemed to be as well as ever some time ago a few snails of a differ-ent species gathered in mexico reached the smithsonian institution and were placed in a box they re-mained undisturbed for two years and three montlis at the end of which time they were put into a jar of glass with some chickweed and a small quantity of tepid water pretty soon they waked up and appeared quite ac-tive pond snails which are sometimes found alive in logs of mahogany from honduras possess equal endurance specimens carried from egypt to paris packed in sawdust have arrived uninjured other kinds have been ex-perimented with by shutting them up in pill boxes and dry bags for years but they have survived the limit of their vitality is yet to be ascertained land snails in cold climates bury themselves in the ground or under dead leaves in winter in tropical re-gions they become torpid during the hot season when about to start in on a period of sleep they seal up their shells with a close fitting door which sometimes is a shield of thin tran-sparent mucus and in other cases an opaque rmeemmbbrraannccee as as a visit-ing card behind this the animal con-structs other walls which serve like so many partitions to protect it against prolonged cold or dryness it is believed that just as the seeds of plants are distributed by winds so likewise the eggs of snails are scattered abroad on the breezes thus dissem-inating their species they are very prolific animals some of the great land snails of the tropics which live on trees and weigh a pound apiece lay eggs that look strikingly like those of pigeons being quite as large the eggs are deposited among decaying vegetation the heat of decomposition hatching them |
