Snails.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2072, 25 May 1887, Page 2

Snails.

Perceiving a comm-ni snail, Helix aspersa, crawling up the w.udow blind one evening, it occurred to roe to try what it could draw up perpendicularly. Accordingly, 1 attached to ita (hall four reels of cotton, fastening one after the other until i ascertained, that a greater load would exceed the limit of its strength. 1 then weighed the entire load, and found that it weighed 2|o/., while the snail weighed only ioz. Thus it was abie to lift perpendicularly nine times its weighl. 1 then made an experiment with a larger snail, weighing joy,, the load being composed chiefly of the same materials as the last, but so placed as to be drawn in a horizontal position on the table. Heels of cotton to the number of twelve were fastened to it, with a pair of scissors, a screw driver, a key, and a knife, weighing seventeen ounces, or fifty times the snails weight. Tho same snail, placed on the ceiling, was able to travel with a weight of four ounces suspended from its shell. 1 next tried it on a piece of common thread, suspended and hanging loose with another snail of its own weight, which it carried up the thread with apparent ease. Alter this I tried it on a single horsehair, strained in a horizontal position, but it had then enough to do to crawl over this narrow bridge without a load.