"Nor aught avails that in his torpid veins, Year after year, life's loitering spark remains[V]: For ever clos'd the impenetrable door, He sinks on death's cold arm to rise no more." +Evans.+ [Footnote V: In the Annual Register for 1775 some very extraordinary instances are related of the protraction of life in snails. After they had lain in a cabinet above fifteen years, immersing them in water caused them to revive and crawl out of their shells.] _Maraldi_ has related a somewhat similar instance. A houseless snail or slug, as it is called, had entered one of his hives: the bees, as soon as they observed it, pierced it with their stings, till it expired beneath their repeated strokes; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with propolis. "For, soon in fearless ire, their wonder lost. Spring fiercely from the comb th' indignant host. Lay the pierc'd monster breathless on the ground, And clap, in joy, their victor pinions round. While all in vain concurrent numbers strive, To heave the slime-girt giant from the hive,-- Sure not alone by force instinctive sway'd, But blest with reason's soul-directing aid, Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour, Thick hardening as it falls, the flaky shower; Embalm'd in shroud of glue the mummy lies, No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise." +Evans.+