THE AMBER SNAILS FAMILY SUCCINEIDAE. Shell oblique, spiral, thin, transparent, of few coils. A family containing several genera of slug-like mollusks.
Genus SUCCINEA, Drap.
Shell oval, fragile, glassy, spire short, whorls few. Animal large, barely covered by shell; foot broad; tentacles short, thick, lower pair dwarfed.
Large genus of two hundred species, distribution universal. Terrestrial, but living in damp places near margins of streams.
The Oblique Amber Snail (S. obliqua, Say) is greenish yellow or amber-hued, fragile, rosy at apex; the enlarged body whorl forms nine-tenths of the shell. The rounded whorls are drawn in by a deep suture. The body is somewhat longer than the shell. Though this mollusk wanders sometimes on hillsides away from streams, doubtless it finds the needed moisture, even in the dryer situations. Length, to I inch. Mississippi Valley.
The Oval Amber Snail (S. ovalis, Gld.) has its outer lip drawn out until the shell is shaped like a sugar scoop, revealing the interior of the small spire. It is not easy to detect these
little snails as they glide over the stems of aquatic plants, or ride on pieces of floating wood. The body and shell both have a translucent horn colour. The oval eggs, laid in June, in clear masses at the roots of aquatic plants, number about twenty. Length, 4 inch. Canada and Northeastern States.
The Rustic Amber Snail (S. rustica, Gld.), with a greenish, horn-coloured, rough, lustreless shell, is fragile like the rest. Length, inch. Oregon, California and Nevada.
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