TESTACELLA. 143 



Although it also feeds on slugs and snails^ and even on its 

 own species (the shells of which have been found in its 

 stomach) J it will not eat dead animals, and even refuses 

 pieces of a fresh worm which has been chopped up to 

 feed it. It only sallies out at night in search of its prey, 

 burying itself deep in the ground during the daytime. 

 After having gorged itself with a worm, it rests many 

 hours in a half-torpid state until the meal has been di- 

 gested ; and it can remain fasting a long time (as much as 

 fourteen or fifteen nights) until hunger impels it to make 

 a fresh hunt. It does not fear the cold, or appear to 

 suffer any inconvenience from it except when the ground 

 is hardened by frost ; and in this respect it resembles the 

 Slugs, the Vitrince, and some of the Zonites, all of which 

 are nearly as carnivorous and hardy as the Testacella. 



Gassies and Fischer are of opinion that the holes which 

 may be sometimes remarked in the shields of the Limax 

 gagates and other Slugs have been made by the Testa- 

 cella, for the sake of extracting the calcareous matter 

 from the internal shells or Limacella of the Slugs to 

 form its own more complete shell ; and they have noticed 

 that the Slugs which have been thus attacked soon die. 

 If the Testacella is taken fresh from the ground and kept 

 a short time in the hand, the warmth seems to revive it 

 and induce it to crawl away ; but if its retreat is op- 

 posed, it will violently bite the skin and oblige the ex- 

 perimentalist to let it go, from an instinctive feeling' of 

 disgust. During cold northerly and easterly winds these 

 creatures enclose their bodies in a kind of cocoon, like 

 that of the silkworm, which is secreted from their skin 

 and often mixed with earthy and extraneous particles. 

 Mr. Norman has informed me that in this state their 

 mantle is expanded to such an extent as to cover all the 

 upper part of the body. Ferussac appears to have been 



