Of Snails

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 424, 8 August 1947, Page 8

Of Snails

THE British Snail-Watching Society, a very exclusive body of not yet two years’ standing, will probably have its work cut out turning down requests for membership if all Crosbie Morrison’s little hearers were as impressed as I was by his talk on Snails, in the educational session from 2ZB last week. It must be confessed that this was the first talk I had heard in the Junior Naturalists’ Club, and perhaps compulsory and more constant listeners may be more blasé in their reactions to the session, for after all it is not till we reach adulthood that we go in for voluntary education in a big way. Crosbie Morrison is a radio educator paf excellence. His snails (and I presume his other beasties) have personality. At the be-. ginning of their lives they make up their minds whether they will be left-handed or right-handed, and/ (unlike vacillating humans) they refuse to recant. They have great powers of endurance and, lacking the moisture necessary for active living, can exist in a state of suspended animation for years. Their most obvious topical virtue, of course, is their independence when it comes to housing. To quote Mr. Peter J. Henniker Heaton, founder of the British Snail-Watching Society: "The slug to the snail is as the vagabond to the ratepayer." Neither Mr. Heaton nor Mr. Morrison has gone 80 far however as to modify the scriptural injunction to "Go to the snail, thou hustler," though both would agree with the official snailwatchers that "focussing your attention on a snail. . . . is a sooth2 ing occupation, especially these days.