A 19th century painting of terrestrial gastropods

This is the plate of "Land Molluscs" from volume 6 of The Royal Natural History edited by Richard Lydekker, published in 1896 (available at The Internet Archive.

The snails with banded shells may be one of the 2 Cepaea species present in Great Britahn, perhaps C. hortensis; whereas the tall-shelled snail climbing up the log looks like either Cochlicella acuta or C. barbara.

Here is a detail from the bottom.


On the left are a couple of clausiliids. The snail in the middle with the aperture of its shell sealed with an operculum is Pomatias elegans. Near the top, a batch off eggs are visible. But life is not only about eating mushrooms and strawberries and laying eggs; there is also danger lurking in the shadows: on the right, a beetle, probably a carabid, is attacking an orange slug. Perhaps that is the slug that laid the eggs. Now it can die.