Pretty much all of the natural world delights me. But if I were to create a list of favorite creatures, the garden snail would be near the top.

Finding a snail, not only away from the seashore, but in the city, amazes me. I have stumbled upon snails in various gardens in Providence, even near the downtown. In such built-up environments, you’d think the snails would get crushed, paved over or otherwise rooted out completely.

These urban snails feature whorled shells in shades of light green and/or tan interspersed by brown stripes. Our garden snails are European natives, which like many species of plants and animals, ended up elsewhere through human activities.

My first snail sighting of this season took place on April 26, when I found two, each about the size of a nickel. Garden snails hibernate in winter in moist, leafy areas. They emerge in spring, when they mate and lay eggs, which take a few weeks to hatch.

Newly hatched snails, which are transparent, feed on their own eggshells. They develop in size and color during the spring and summer; their shells growing with them.

Primarily, garden snails eat plant materials, algae and fungi, but they also graze on animal droppings, and inorganic material, such as limestone and cement to obtain calcium for their shells. Most of their feeding is benign or beneficial. Nonetheless, some gardeners and garden suppliers equate the creatures with their shell-less cousins, the slugs, which consume growing leaves, fruits and vegetables.

Garden snails mate, forage and are otherwise more active at night, when the air is usually the most humid or damp. But some garden snails come out during the day, particularly to feed.

Summertime is when I find the garden snail population at its peak. Often, they are the young of the year, and tiny. The wetter the weather, the easier it is to find the snails and the more of them I get to see. In dry summers, land snails may shut down activity or go dormant until it rains.

I want to make clear that I only find garden snails in shaded spots. My guess is that they make their way there as the sun moves behind buildings or other structures.

Some snails are in such plain sight that I’ve loitered beside these small, shelled, slow-goers, as students, lawyers, bureaucrats and other two-legged city dwellers rushed past in the routines of everyday life.

The typical garden snail in New England moves slower, averaging some 50 yards an hour. That is more my speed.

Scott Turner’s (scottturnerster@gmail.com) nature column appears here most Fridays.