DISPERSAL OF SLUGS. 1/3 



molluscs, it is said, have attained so wide a range as our 

 own little marsh-slug- {Li/nax Icevis), which, " under 

 different names by various authors," has been recorded 

 from Europe, North and South America, the West 

 Indies, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, and many 

 islands of the Pacific/ Possibly or probably it has 

 been carried to some of these regions by man, but it is 

 interesting to find that in Australia, for instance, where 

 it occurs " in very out-of-the-way places, and far away 

 from the coastal cities," it is regarded as truly indigenous.- 

 Very probably, as it appears to me, these creatures are 

 able in some way or other to journey over the sea — no 

 doubt rarely — for short distances at least, and it seems 

 possible also that accidents leading to transit over the 

 ocean for very considerable distances may have occurred 

 now and then in the course of the vast periods 

 during which these naked genera have inhabited the 

 earth, but we are unable, it is true, to refer to any 

 actually observed occurrence that can reasonably be 

 said to lend direct support to this view. The creatures' 

 eggs, it will be remembered, do not differ essentially 

 from the eggs of many snails. Those of certain kinds 

 are deposited in the trunks of hollow trees ; thus, for 

 instance. Dr. Scharff mentions having found ova of the 

 y{tVio^-^\\xg {Limax flavus) '^m 2.xi old tree trunk, near 

 Dublin,"^ and those of the tree-slug (L. arbonini), I 



» C. Hedley, " Proc. Lin. Soc, N.S.W.," December, 1890, as 

 quoted in the " Nautilus," v. (1891), 12. 



"" C. T. Musson, " Proc. Lin. Soc, N.S.W.,"for 1890, (2), v. (1891), 

 p. 885. 



3 "Sci. Trans. Royal Dublin Soc.,'' (2), iv. (1891), p. 522. 



