I like pets but I don't want the responsibility to return home to take
care of dogs or cats. As a joke, I put some snails from my yard in a
clear plastic take-out container with some dead leaves and a little
water. The container stands on my kitchen window sill. They've been
dormant or sometimes sedately grazing the sides of the container.

The snails are Mesodon thyroidus, Triodopsis hopetonensis, and
Triodopsis juxtidens.

Tonight there were some scraps of stringbeans from the cutting board
and I put a few in. The Mesodon was the first to discover a scrap. He's
been all over it, gorging himself for the last hour but now a T.
hopetonensis is edging him out by pushing it faster. Meanwhile the T.
juxtidens is attacking a second piece.

I can almost see this as a video with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for
soundtrack.

David Kirsh
Durham, NC

P.S. You can see some of the T. hopetonensis on
http://jaxshells.org/0109aa1.htm
Thanks to Harry Lee and Bill Frank.

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