HABITS AND PROPERTIES. H 



REMARKS. The type of the family, as the term implies 

 is the genus Limax consisting of animals known by the 

 name of slugs. They are found throughout the greater 

 part of Europe and North America, and also in many other 

 parts of the world ; indeed, the more common species are 

 almost universally diffused throughout the temperate lati- 

 tudes, and are undoubtedly destined to spread over every 

 country which is accessible to European or North Ameri- 

 can commercial enterprise. The family corresponds with 

 the Limaciens of M. Lamarck, and includes all the air- 

 breathing land-mollusks not furnished with a spiral shell 

 in which the internal organs, arranged in convolutions, 

 are lodged. It is a very natural division, and although 

 the species at one extreme of the family are entirely 

 naked, and destitute of even the rudiments of a shell, 

 internal or external, at the other, they approach to the 

 Helicidce, and exhibit a near affinity to some of the 

 genera of that family. The terminating link is the genus 

 Testacella, which is wanting in this country. The divid- 

 ing line is however obvious. Testacella does not possess 

 a truly spiral shell, while Vitrina, which is the connect- 

 ing genus of the next family, is provided with a fleshy 

 mantle, and with a well defined spiral shell, in which a 

 portion at least of the internal organs are placed, thus 

 uniting in itself some of the characters of both families. 

 There is no difference among authors, therefore, as to the 

 limits of the family ; but the genera are not so well estab- 

 lished, and cannot be, until their animals are better 

 known. Some of those proposed by M. Fe*russac will 1><- 



