52 



THE FOOD OF SLUGS AND THE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF ANOPLOCEPHALIDAE 



By Professor A. EAILLIET, 



Ecole veterinaire (VAlfort, 

 Foreign Member of the Association of Economic Biologists. 



I HAVE just read, a little tardily, but with much interest, the note 

 of Miss Marie V. Lebour, "Some feeding habits of slugs," published in 

 The Annals of Afflied Biology, Vol. i, Nos. 3-4, January 1915, p. 393. 



Miss Lebour has discovered that the slugs, Agriolimax agrestis and 

 Arion circumscriftus, ingest very greedily the proglottids of two 

 Anoplocephalidae, — Moniezia exjyansa of sheep and Cittotaenia pectinata 

 of rabbits ; she has ascertained that the eggs of these Cestodes pass 

 through the intestine of the Molluscs without undergoing alteration, 

 the six-hooked embryos remaining alive ; but she has not discovered 

 any trace of the larval Cestodes in the body of the slug. 



It may not perhaps be without interest to record, in this connection, 

 the results of an experiment, very imperfect, but nevertheless important, 

 which I had occasion to make twenty years ago and about which I have 

 just found certain short notes. 



On November 4, 1892, I collected from the faeces of a carrier pigeon 

 coming from Neufchatel-en-Bray (Normandy) some proglottids of 

 BertieUa delafondi; these proglottids, macerated in a little water, were 

 placed on a cabbage leaf with four grey slugs (Agriolimax agrestis). 

 The next morning, I noticed that almost the whole of the contaminated 

 leaf had been eaten. 



On the 14th of November, I dissected one of these slugs, but could 

 only find some Nematodes and Trematodes. 



On the 8th and 30th of November, I repeated this operation with 

 chicory leaves and a second lot of six grey slugs. On the 14th of 

 December, I fed two pigeons on these slugs, each receiving three. 

 Towards the middle of January, one of these pigeons began to evacuate 

 proglottides of BertieUa delafondi. 



As can be seen, this experiment has been left unfinished, since I have 

 not observed in slugs the larval form of the parasite, and unfortunately 

 I have not had an opportunity of repeating the experiment. 



