The well-known story of the British Museum snail is thus related by Mr. Baird.[79] On the 25th March 1846 two specimens of _Helix desertorum_, collected by Charles Lamb, Esq., in Egypt some time previously, were fixed upon tablets and placed in the collection among the other Mollusca of the Museum. There they remained fast gummed to the tablet. About the 15th March 1850, having occasion to examine some shells in the same case, Mr. Baird noticed a recently formed epiphragm over the mouth of one of these snails. On removing the snails from the tablet and placing them in tepid water, one of them came out of its shell, and the next day ate some cabbage leaf. A month or two afterwards it began repairing the lip of its shell, which was broken when it was first affixed to the tablet. While resident in Porto Santo, from 27th April to 4th May 1848, Mr. S. P. Woodward[80] collected a number of Helices and sorted them out into separate pill-boxes. On returning home, these boxes were placed in empty drawers in an insect cabinet, and on 19th October 1850, nearly two and a half years afterwards, many of them were found to be still alive. A whole bagful of _H. turricula_, collected on the Ilheo de Cima on 24th April 1849, were all alive at the above-mentioned date. In September 1858 Mr. Bryce Wright sent[81] to the British Museum two specimens of _H. desertorum_ which had been dormant for four years. They were originally collected in Egypt by a Mr. Vernèdi, who, in May 1854, while stopping at one of the stations in the desert, found a heap of thorn-bushes lying in a corner of the building, rather thickly studded with the snails. He picked off fifteen or twenty specimens, which he carried home and locked up in a drawer, where they remained undisturbed until he gave two to Mr. Wright in September 1858. In June 1855 Dr. Woodward placed specimens of _H. candidissima_ and _H. aperta_ in a glass box, to test their tenacity of life; he writes of their being still alive in April 1859. Mr. R. E. C. Stearns records[82] a case of _Buliminus pallidior_ and _H. Veatchii_ from Cerros I. living without food from 1859 to March 1865. H. Aucapitaine mentions[83] a case of _H. lactea_ found in calcinated ground in a part of the Sahara heated to 122° F., where no rain was said to have fallen for five years. The specimen revived after being enclosed in a bottle for three and a half years. In August 1863, Mr. W. J. Sterland[84] put specimens of _H. nemoralis_ in a box and afterwards placed the box in his cabinet; in November 1866 one specimen was discovered to be alive.