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Sea-birds, of course, soon found out our rocks; but as they live off fish only, they contributed little more than rich beds of guano to the permanent colonising of the islands. As well as I can remember, the land-snails were the earliest truly terrestrial casuals that managed to pick up a stray livelihood in these first colonial days of the archipelago.
The pretty snails called cyclostomas, which have a lid to their shells, are well known to survive imprisonments of many months; but in the ordinary open-mouthed land-snails such cases are even more remarkable.
A very small proportion of them will survive that trial, and they trill be the better organised to maintain themselves and rear their young in the new earth. The remaining land-life of the Coal-forest is confined to worm-like organisms whose remains are not preserved, and land-snails which do not call for further discussion. We may, in conclusion, glance at the progress of life in the waters.
One of our Land-snails, the Bulimus, whose shell is continued into a turret, moves almost in the same fashion, tumbling repeatedly as he goes. The Clythra's is a shapely jar and does credit to the insect's art of pottery.
Nevertheless with the pulmoniferous gasteropods, or land-snails, the pairing is preceded by courtship; for these animals, though hermaphrodites, are compelled by their structure to pair together.
In the ark, each person, women included, must have attended each day to ten thousand nine hundred and sixty-four birds, seven hundred and sixty-six beasts, one hundred and fourteen reptiles, one thousand one hundred and fifty land-snails, and one hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred insects.
But, since the life of a sloth is not as long as this, they must have bequeathed their journey to their posterity, and they to their descendants, born on the way, who must have reached the ark before the door was closed. The land-snails must have met with still greater difficulties.
I'm going to do the same, and put down everything, just as it comes; beetles, chrysalises, flowers, funguses, mosses, earth-nuts, and land-snails, all just as I find them. If one began with different note-books for the creatures, and the plants, and the shells, it would be quite endless. I think I shall start at that place in the hedge in the croft where we found the bumble-bee's nest.
These naked sea-slugs are hermaphrodites, yet they pair together, as do land-snails, many of which have extremely pretty shells. It is conceivable that two hermaphrodites, attracted by each other's greater beauty, might unite and leave offspring which would inherit their parents' greater beauty. But with such lowly-organised creatures this is extremely improbable.
The air-breathing land-snails, of which we know four thousand six hundred species, could never have survived a twelve months' soaking; and they must therefore be cared for. The nine thousand two hundred of these add no little to the discomfort of the trebly-crowded ark. Now let the flood come: all are lodged in the ark of safety, and are ready for a year's voyage.
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