Micrographia/Chapter 40
Observ. XL. Of the Teeth of a Snail.
I Have little more to add of the Teeth of a Snail, besides the Picture of it, which is represented in the first Figure of the 25. Scheme, save that his bended body, A B C D E F, which seem'd fashioned very much like a row of small teeth, orderly plac'd in the Gums, and looks as if it
Schem. XXV. were divided into several smaller and greater black teeth, was nothing but one small bended hard bone, which was plac'd in the upper jaw of the mouth of a House-Snail, with which I observ'd this very Snail to feed on the leaves of a Rose-tree, and to bite out pretty large and half round bits, not unlike the Figure of a (C) nor very much differing from it in bigness, the upper part A B C D of this bone, I found to be much whiter, and to grow out of the upper chap of the Snail, G G G, and not to be any thing neer so much creas'd as the lower and blacker part of it H I I H K K H which was exactly shap'd like teeth, the bone growing thinner, or tapering to an edge towards K K K. It seem'd to have nine teeth, or prominent parts I K, I K, I F, &c. which were join'd together by the thinner interpos'd parts of the bone. The Animal to which these teeth belong, is a very anomalous creature, and seems of a kind quite distinct from any other terrestrial Animal or Insect, the Anatomy whereof exceedingly differing from what has been hitherto given of it I should have inserted, but that it will be more proper in another place. I have never met with any kind of Animal whose teeth are all join'd in one, save onely that I lately observ'd, that all the teeth of a Rhinocerot, which grow on either side of its mouth, are join'd into one large bone, the weight of one of which I found to be neer eleven pound Haverdupois. So that it seems one of the biggest sort of terrestrial Animals, as well as one of the smallest, has his teeth thus shap'd.