Pliny on snails All the while during their retreat and lying close within, they sleep as if they were dead and deprived of their power to poison. In like manner doe Periwinkles and Snailes; but not onely in the winter season, but in summer again they lie still, cleaving so hard to rocks and stones, that although by force they be plucked off and turned with their bellies upward, yet they will not out of their shell. In the Baleare Ilands there be a kind of them called Cavaticæ, which never creep out of the holes within the ground, neither live they of any grass or green herb, but hang together like clusters of grapes. Another sort there is of them, but not so common, hiding themselves within the cover of their shell, sticking ever fast unto them: these lie always under the ground, and were in times past digged up only about the Alpes, along the maritime coasts: but now of late they be discovered in Veliternum also, where men begin to get them out of the earth. But the best of them all and most commendable, are those in the Island Astypelæa. In snails the horns are fleshy, and are thus adapted for the purpose of feeling the way, which is also the case with the cerastes;* some reptiles, again, have only one horn, though the snail has always two, suited for protruding and withdrawing. to main page