34 FOOD OF SLUGS AND SNAILS chap. 



meat, other snails (when dead), vegetables, and paper.^ The 

 common Stenogyra decollata of the South of Europe has a very 

 bad character for flesh-eating habits, when kept in captivity. 

 Mr. Binney^ kept a number for a long time as scavengers, to 

 clean the shells of other snails. As soon as a living Helix was 

 placed in a box with them, one would attack it, introduce itself 

 into the upper whorls, and completely remove the animal. One 

 day a number of Succinea ovalis were left with them for a short 

 time, and disappeared entirely ! The Stenogyra had eaten shell 

 as well as animal. This view of Stenogyra is quite confirmed 

 by Miss Hele, who has bred them in thousands. " I can keep," 

 she writes,^ " no small Helix or Bulimus with them, for they at 

 once kill and eat them. They will also eat raw meat." 



Even the common Limnaea stagnalis^ which is usually re- 

 garded as strictly herbivorous, will sometimes betake itself, 

 apparently by preference, to a diet of flesh. Karl Semper fre- 

 quently observed the Limnaeae in his aquarium suddenly attack 

 health}^ living specimens of the common large water newt (^Tri- 

 ton taeniatus)^ overcome them, and devour them, although there 

 was plenty of their favourite vegetable food growing within easy 

 reach.* The same species has also been noticed to devour its 

 own ova, and the larvae of Dytiscus. Limnaea peregra has been 

 detected capturing and partially devouring minnows in an aqua- 

 rium, when deprived of other food, and Dr. Jeffreys has seen 

 the same species attack its own relatives under similar circum- 

 stances, piercing the spire at its thinnest point near to the apex.^ 

 L. stagnalis, kept in an aquarium, has succeeded in overpower- 

 ing and partially devouring healthy specimens of the common 

 stickleback.^ 



Powers of Intelligence, Homing, and finding Food. — It is 

 not easy to discover whether land Mollusca possess any faculties 

 which correspond to what we call intelligence, as distinct from 

 their capacities for smell, sight, taste, and hearing. Darwin 

 mentions'' a remarkable case, communicated to him by Mr. 

 Lonsdale. A couple of Helix pomatia^ one of which was sickly, 



1 J. S. Gibbons, Quart. Journ. Conch, ii. p. 143. 



2 Bull. Mus. C. Z. Harv. iv. p. 193. 



3 I. c. p. 362. 4 Animal Life., p. 59. 



5 Zoologist, 1861, p. 7400 ; Brit. Conch, i. p. 108. 



6 H. Ullyett, Science Gossip, xxii. (1886), p. 214. 

 " Descent of Man, i. p. 325, ed. 1. 



