15 



ON SOME AUSTRALIAN SLUaS, CHIEFLY 

 TASMANIAN. 



By Professor Ealph Tate, Assoc. Lin. Soc, F.G.S., etc.. 

 President Phil. Soc. Adelaide, Honorary Member Royal 

 Society of Tasmania. 



[Bead IStJi Apil, 1880.] 



Slugs have long been known to inhabit various parts of the 

 Australian colonies, and their existence is, year by year, 

 becoming more and more unpleasantly familiar to the gar- 

 dener and floriculturist. The naturalist has, however, paid 

 little attention to them. 



The scientifically-hnown Australasian Slugs belong to two 

 different families. 1st. The Limacidce, which includes Limax 

 olivacetis, Gould, described in 1852 (see " Otia," p. 223), from 

 specimens obtained at Parramatta, New South Wales ; and the 

 New Zealand Milax antipodarum, Pfeiffer, and Limax fuli- 

 ginosus, Grould (1. cit., p. 223). ■ The last has been overlooked 

 by Hutton, Cat. Land Moll, of New Zealand, 1873, and by 

 Von. Marten's Critical List of Moll, of N. Z., 1873, but it is 

 congeneric with Milax antipodarum, and may probably prove 

 to be specifically identical. 2nd. The Janellidce, which com- 

 prises the bitentaculated Slugs, is restricted to the Austral- 

 asian province, and includes the following tjipes:—Ja)ieUa 

 hite7itac2tlata, Quo J and Gaimard (Limax), oi. New Zealand; 

 Aneita MacDonaldi, Gray, of New Hebrides ; and Trihonio- 

 jfJiorus Grceffi, Humbert (Memories de la Soc. de Physique, 

 etc., de Geneve, vol. xvii.,lst part, 1863), from Woollongong, 

 New South Wales. Similar forms occur in New Caledonia. 

 (Fischer, Journ. de Conchyliologie xvi., p. 228-232, 1868), 

 but it is doubtful if more than one generic form is repre- 

 sented. TriboniopJiorus differs from the other genera of the 

 family by the absence of a dorsal groove. 



The common Tasmanian and South Australian Slugs 

 belong to the first-named family, and to the Old World 

 genera, Limax and Milax ; but a new genus, Cystopelta, I 

 have erected for the reception of a rarer Tasmanian form, 

 which may be relegated to the family Arionid [\ To Messrs. 

 Petterd and Legrand I am indebted for the material forming 

 the basis of this communication, and from whose observations 

 it would appear that Limax Legrandi and Milax Tasmanicus 

 are widely spread in Tasmania; but the chief interest 

 attached to Cystopelta Petterdi, which has been forwarded to 

 me by the gentleman whose name it bears. Both gentlemen 

 have also submitted to me the large Slug inhabiting cellars 



