WEATHERWISE SNAILS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17814, 13 July 1923, Page 15

WEATHERWISE SNAILS.

Snails are extraordinary indicators of changes in the weather, and observers of natural phenomena give some interesting accounts of weather-wise snails. They do not drink, but imbibe moisture in their bodies during rain, and exude it at regular intervals afterward. A certain snail first exudes the pure liquid; when this is exhausted a light red bucceeds, then a deep red, next yellow, and lastly a dark brown. The snail is very careful not to exude more of its moisture than is necessary. The snail is never seen abroad except before rain, according to W. R. Reinicke in a contribution to "Science and Invention." At that time it is found ascending the stems of plants two days before rain; if it be a long and hard rain they get on the sheltered side of the leaf; if a short rain on the outside of the leaf. Another snail has the same habit, but differs only in its colour; before rain it is yellow, and after it blue. Other snails show signs of rain, not only by means of exuding iluids, but by means of pores and protuberances; and the bodies of some snails diave large tubercles rising from them before rain. These tubercles commence showing themselves ten days previous to the fall of rain they indicate; at the end of these tubercles is a pore, and at the time of rain these tubercles, with thier pores opened, are stretched to their utmost to receive the water. In another kind of snail, a few days before rain a large an(' deep indentation, beginning at list head between the horns, and ending with the jointure at the shell, appears. A few days before rain some varieties of snails crawl to the most exposed hillside, where, if they arrive before the rain descends, they seek some crevice in the rocks, and then close the aperture of the shell with some glutinous substance; this, when the rain approaches, they dissolve, and are then seen crawling about.