Reports to various Correspondents. 57 



gas liine as soon as the bine is down, and in early spring give a 

 dressing of salt. I do not know the effect of the latter on hops, 

 but Mr. Hall, of Eothamsted Experiment Station, would soon 

 tell you. I do not remember hearing this subject referred to at any 

 of our Conferences at Wye College : I doubt if it would affect the 

 stock early in the year in any case. 1 am convinced that this great 

 outbreak of slugs in recent years is due to the insane destruction of 

 birds — I know in my own case this is the main cause. In hop 

 gardens, wliy cannot we do what is done in fruit orchards, employ 

 poultry — especially in this case ducks — most ravenous slug killers ? 

 Not only in such cases are the pests destroyed, but we get some 

 return in the end. We cannot well adopt such natural remedies in 

 gardens or fields, but with fruit and hops, I think we too often neglect 

 feeding a paying crop off the pests of another crop." 



A General Account of Slugs and Snails injurious 

 to Farm and Garden Produce. 



The following paper is mainly taken from my article on this 

 subject in the "Zoologist" for June, 1895. Fresh notes have been 

 added, however, to bring the subject up to date. Slugs and snails 

 have been very harmful during 1903, not only to hops, as recorded 

 in the preceding pages, but to all plants. 



Snails and slugs are great pests to the gardener, and every now 

 and then a plague of one or the other makes its appearance and 

 attacks our field crops, destroying wheat and, as recorded from Great 

 Staughton this year by Mr. F. Powers, eating off crops of young 

 cabbage. Both snails and slugs possess a head which bears 

 tentacles, and also a pair of eyes which may be borne at the tip of 

 these tentacles. The foot is flattened. Snails possess lips, but the 

 organ they use for destroying plant-tissues is the curious swollen 

 rasping tongue, the " radula," the surface of which is covered by 

 rows of variously arranged teeth. They breathe by means of the 

 highly vascular inner walls of the mantle-cavity. Snails and 

 slugs are hermaphrodite. The eggs are laid in batches in the 

 ground and under stones. The injurious snails belong chiefly to 

 the genus Helix. Almost every wood and hedge, field and garden 

 yields some kind of Helix ; others are partial to the sands near 

 the sea, water-courses, and damp places. Their habits are noc- 

 turnal and crepuscular, and they are seldom seen crawling in the day- 

 time, unless after heavy rains. This latter habit has given rise to 



