snail-shell

What's sad is that sometimes they appear to die in place, so later on the railing has one or two snail-shell knobs glued on with dessicated snail flesh, which can be gingerly plucked off or else left as reminders of the fleetingness of life.

Cat Rambo catrambo 2007

In L. the name was extended to other shells, as a whelk, a snail-shell, the shell-shaped Triton's trumpet, etc., and these senses passed into the modern langs.

languagehat.com: DRASTY CONCHES. 2005

The tremendous weight of the shadowed earth had engulfed such frail fetters, such snail-shell encumbrances.

The Waves 2003

Fortunately he knocked against an empty snail-shell.

Household Tales 2003

Starting from them, I should never have arrived at that snail-shell nose; but starting from the nose, which did not appear to be in the slightest degree ashamed of itself, but stood out alone there like a grotesque ornament fastened on his face, I must proceed in a diametrically opposite direction from the work of

Within a Budding Grove 2003

As if aware of the wreck he'd made of his coiffure, he put up one gloved hand to straighten a snail-shell curl.

The Silent Tower Hambly, Barbara 1986

The tube that in land vertebrates developed from the saccule is the cochlea (kok'lee-uh; "snail-shell" L), which is a spiral structure that does indeed have a close resemblance to a snail shell, except that its width does not narrow as it approaches its central apex, but remains constant (see illustration, p. 253).

The Human Brain Asimov, Isaac 1963

After this, we would sit on a rock or in an open glade as the sun grew warm, learning each other's language, or hushing to make the little birds and beasts come near us; watching the horse-herds like swarms of ants on the plain below; sleeping sometimes, to make up for the night; or locked in love, knowing nothing beyond ourselves but some leaf or snail-shell on the ground next to our eyes.

The Bull From The Sea Renault, Mary 1962

We have seen a laborious ant (_magni Formica laboris_) tugging a snail-shell (for some reason only known to himself) up a hill, stopping to take breath, and going cheerily to work again till he had nearly accomplished his ascent, and found himself on the very edge of its summit.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. Various

It is, I believe, the highest village in England, and in walking up to it there comes a feeling that this is rather like walking up a gigantic snail-shell, and that, when one reaches the top, it _is_ the very top and end of all things.

Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Rosalind Northcote