According to the nineteenth-century American zoologist Louis Agassiz, the snail is “a very model lover” that “will spend hours…paying attentions the most assiduous to the object of [its] affections.” But there is a sting in the tail of snail romance, for as explained by another nineteenth-century observer, the courtship of snails “realises the Pagan fable of Cupid’s arrows, for, previous to their union, each snail throws a winged dart or arrow at its partner.”Tim Flannery, "Tigers, Humans, Snails." NYRB Volume 58, No. 2, February 10, 2011.
Photo: Christer Strömholm - Jura, 1949.
