444 MR, T. A. DYMES ON THE 
morning there was по 7ropvrolum left ; most of the elianthus-leaf had been 
aten too, and the seed-mass was broken, but not into single seeds. 
The next night I gave it a fresh supply of the leaves it had left untouched 
and another fresh seed-mass, but no Zropeolum ov Helianthus. At 10.20 р.м. 
it was at the Helleborus; it then went to the Daisy, from there to the 
Potentilla, and back again to the seeds, where I left it at midnight. Ву the 
next morning it had just nibbled at the Primrose-leaf, à middle -aged one ; 
it had taken about half an inch from the Solidago, and m broken up the 
seed-masses into single seeds. 
On the 14th, as I "did not want to starve it, but to discover its preferences, 
I gave it more Daisy, Potentilla, and Solidago, and more Hellebore seeds, It 
went to the seeds first, and during the night it again had a bite out of. the 
sume leaves as before, but evidently the Potentilla was not relished. 
The next night I reduced it to Ribes, (лега, Ivy, Coronilla, and Box— 
the things it had, so far, refused to touch,—and I added one more seed-mass. 
It fed upon the seeds and nothing else for four nights on end, although I 
kept the supply of leaves fresh. On the fifth night T relented, and gave it 
another seed-mass, two small € Thrysanthemum leaves, and a young Tropwolum 
leaf. It ate the bulk of the banquet, and next morning there was nothing 
left on the plate but the débris of the leaves and the seeds of the Hellebore, 
now stripped clean of the bait. 
There is, then, I think, some reason to believe that Helix aspersa eats the 
strips because it likes them, for it attacks the immature follicles and gets at 
them ; apparently it will go for them from a distance of a yard or more, and 
it eats them as readily as it does other foods tor which it shows a liking. 
Summary of Section [. 
Molluscs.—One ean say almost nothing about Lelie rufescens. This snail 
is comparatively rare in my garden, and I saw but one individual on the 
masses. The most one ean conclude is that, where the two are found 
together, it will eat the elaiosome ; but in my garden it did not apparently 
succeed in breaking up the mass. 
For the slug, „рой hortensis, one may fairly come to the same conclusion, 
that it acts to some extent as a disintegrating : agent, although in an entirely 
minor degree. 
Feli, aspersa, on the other hand, must be credited with a great deal of 
execution in this way. ТЕ not only can, but it does, break up the mass into 
single seeds; when short of food, it will strip the latter bare of the bait. 
It appears that the seed-mass, or rather its elaiosome, really attracts the 
snails, though that is not the same thing as saying that it is an adaptation to 
molluscan disintegration—a point to which I shall refer later. 
It also seems possible that this species may carry the seeds some little 
