FIELD OR MILKY SLUG; BLACK SLUG. 175 



long, greyish in colour, and with m ilky slime ; it is very 

 common in fields, gardens and woods. 



The Arions, or Black Slugs, of which one kind is figured in 

 repose at fig. 3 (p. 174), and less than nat. size at fig. 2, are 

 partly distinguishable by the skin being wrinkled and the 

 shield on the back shagreened. Both kinds are common. 

 Avion ater is as much as four inches long; A. liortensis is 

 about the same length as the Milky Slug, but long in propor- 

 tion to its size. The colour is wonderfully variable, being 

 "brown, red, yellow, grey, greenish, or black," usually some- 

 what striped along the back and sides, and covered with 

 coarse oblong tubercles ; the foot (lowest surface) bordered 

 with some shade of yellow or red, or with grey ; slime 

 yellowish or whitish. 



These Arions, or Black Slugs, are stated to lay their eggs 

 separately under ground.* 



Prevention and Eemedies. — Slugs, as is well known, 

 frequent damp spots, and lay their eggs in the ground or at 

 the roots of Grass and other plants, and come out to feed in 

 the evening when the heat of the day is gone by, or, if the 

 weather is mild and damp, after a shower they may be found 

 during the day. 



The time when they are out at feed is one important point 

 to be considered in methods of prevention, and so also (and 

 very especially) is the circumstance that the Slug can exude 

 slime, so that it can " moult-oft','' as it were, a coating of lime 

 or other obnoxious dressing thrown on it, and thus (quite 

 getting rid of it together with the slime) be no worse for one 

 application of any ordinary dressing. This moulting the Slug 

 can do a few times successivehj, but after the operation has 

 been repeated two or three (or at least a very few times) the 

 creature requires an interval to regain the power ; the slime 

 reservoirs, or power of exuding slime, are exhausted for the 

 time being, and the obnoxious dressing consequently takes 

 efiect on the skin of the Slug and kills it. 



Where there is bad Slug-attack in fields, attention is parti- 

 cularly needed to these points. On ««-occupied land such a 

 heavy dressing of gas-lime, or quick-lime, or salt, may be put 

 on, that wherever the Slug crawls there is the obnoxious stuff, 

 and it soon loses its slime-producing power and perishes. 

 But very often, where crops are infested, lime is only thrown 

 in the middle of the day or at any convenient time, just when 

 the Slugs are sheltered from the dressings falling on them, 



* The above descriptions are taken from ' British Conehology,' by T. Gwynn 

 Jeffreys, F.E.S., Vol. i., to which the reader is referred for much useful in- 

 formation both as to habits and scientific distinctions of the Limacida. 



