The grove snail and its bands
Yellow, pink, or brown, with up to five bands: Cepaea looks like many species and is usually one or two. The lip of the shell tells them apart.
The garden snail
Cornu aspersum is the brown, flecked snail of vegetable beds from Europe to California. It is not every snail in the bed.
Snails of the tide line
Periwinkles, dog whelks, and limpets spend the low tide sealed to rock. An empty shell in the strandline is a different kind of evidence.
Snails of ponds and ditches
Pointed pond snails, left-handed bladder snails, and flat ramshorns graze the film on plants and glass. A land snail cannot join them.
The garden after rain
To a snail, one garden is many rooms. Rain opens the doors between them, and dusk is when the census walks out.
Where snails go in winter
Hibernation is a sealed shell in a place that loses heat slowly. Bare soil in a hard frost is the dangerous address.
Waiting out the drought
A snail sealed to a wall in August is estivating. The white film over the opening is a temporary door, not a death.
Eggs and the first whorl
A hatchling garden snail already has a shell. The parent buries the clutch, covers it, and does not come back.
Courtship and the love dart
Garden snails are hermaphrodites, and some of them stab a chalky dart during courtship. The dart is not itself the sperm.
Homing, and the evening roost
Many snails leave a shelter at dusk and come back to it. Chemical trails explain more of that than any map.