L/IND 



QL^SS-SHELLS 



EW living things are probably 

 so unpopular as slugs, so this 

 chapter will get skipped by 

 some of my readers. The 

 nakedness of their soft bodies, 

 which necessitates a copious 

 secretion of mucus, renders them repulsive to us, 

 and when we think of their ravages among tender 

 seedlincrs and succulent strawberries our sensi- 

 bilities are wounded in a very tender part. And 

 yet regarding them from this point of view we 

 may say there are slugs and slugs : we may be 

 a little too indiscriminate in wielding the tar- 

 brush even where slugs are concerned, and may 

 condemn as enemies creatures that do us no harm, 

 though they are related closely to species that work 

 considerable mischief. In these Land-slugs we find a 

 tolerably close parallel with the Sea-slugs described in 

 pages 276-303 : we find closely related to them snails 



328 



