128 SNAIL-SLUG. [1899 



brown, mottled with black, reel, or white. Tentacles (horns) four ; 

 eyes placed not quite at the tips of the upper pair ; and beneath the 

 much shorter lower pair of tentacles are a pair of processes much 

 shorter and thicker, which are technically the "lips," or "labial 

 palpi," and are flexible and extensible. These are not given (conse- 

 quently on position) in my figures. 



The shell (see figures 4 and 5, p. 126) is about a quarter of an inch 

 in length, somewhat more than a sixth in breadth, oblong in shape, 

 compressed, rounded at the front margin, obliquely truncate at the 

 hinder margin, and the spire terminal and very small. 



In the variety scntKlioii of Sowerby, the shell is narrower, and the 

 spire more produced and pointed. The above description, and some 

 parts of the preceding life-history, are mainly taken from the informa- 

 tion given by Prof. J. G. Jeffreys in his work referred to below * ; but, 

 for the sake of convenience of reference, I have given some of the 

 peculiar points as to appearance and habits recorded generally as 

 customarily characteristic in eonnectio)i with the notes given me of 

 observations in English gardens (see following pages), as thus we have 

 the general digest of information confirmed by notes from given 

 localities. 



A further point which bears strongly on the great power of the 

 Testacella in pursuing its prey through the ground or passages left by 

 worms is its extraordinary compressibility. In my own observations 

 I have seen a well-grown specimen in the operation of escaping from 

 under a bell-glass, where it was confined, squeeze itself so forcibly 

 between the edge of the glass and the surface beneath (where apparently 

 passage was impossible) that, as the fore part of the body passed, it 

 became as completely flattened, or more so, as the empty finger of a 

 glove when the two sides are compressed together. 



The largest number of T. /i<(liotidea which I have myself found in 

 one locality was in the kitchen garden at Dunster Lodge, Spring 

 Grove, near Isleworth, whilst resident there before removing to St. 

 Albans. Here we found so many on one occasion that we sent twenty 

 or more to a scientific friend, these being all collected at one time. 

 From the length of time since I left the above neighbourhood, I 

 cannot give the exact numbers we found with certainty, but it was, as 

 far as I remember, as many as forty or fifty, and they were of various 

 ages. 



Amongst more recent observations, it was on April 30th, in 1897, 

 that I received from my friend and near neighbour, Miss Nisbet, 

 of The Abbey Gate House, St. Albans, two specimens, which, on 



* ' British Couchology,' by John Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., &c., vol. i. pp. 140-148, 

 plate V. tigs. 6, 7, and 8. 



