AGRIOLIMAX LAEVIS. 125 
It is also very pugnacious and aggressive, pulling off and devouring the 
slime from the bodies of the larger species, or withdrawing its tentacles and 
butting violently with its head against their bodies, at the same time pro- 
truding and rasping with the odontophore. 
When these attacks, which may be twice or thrice repeated, take place, 
the slug assaulted usually shrinks, momentarily withdraws the head 
beneath the mantle, and then crawls hastily away; sometimes, however, 
the injured animal turns to repel the aggressor, which then, according to 
Mr. Kew, makes off with all speed, raising its tail and shaking it from 
side to side, and possibly striking therewith the head or tentacles of the 
pursuer, which, being thus temporarily disconcerted, enables the agile 
ageressor to escape more readily. 
The favourite food of this species has not yet been discovered; Mr. Gain, 
who had many individuals under close observation for a long period, states 
that of the seventy-nine different kinds of food offered to it, although 
none were devoured with zest, thirteen were eaten more or less freely ; ‘of 
these, six were cultivated plants, the remaining seven being the foxcloye 
fleabane, crosswort, wallflower, red-robin, sow-thistle, and the fungus 
Polyporus squamosus. 
Dumont & Mortillet allude to its fondness for animal matter, in pointing 
out that it may be procured by spreading bones in suitable spots, when 
the slugs can be readily found beneath them, devouring the gelatine 
softened by the moisture. 
Herr Clessin has observed it in a state of nature feeding upon the pollen 
of the ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), and. Magnus records 
that the fertilization of that plant, during cold and damp weather, when 
insects are not abroad, has been actually brought about by A. lwvis crawl- 
ing over the flowers. 
Although it is said in Germany also to frequent dry situations, A. lwvis 
in this country is confined to the vicinity of water, and is almost invariably 
in company with Zonitoides nitida. Even when submerged by rising water 
A, lwvis does not appear to be disturbed, as it has often been found Testing 
immobile and unconcerned for several hours on the underside of logs, etc., 
quite immersed in the water. 
Mr. F. J. Partridge at suitable times has found it living in company with 
Succinea oblonga im hollows of the sandhills at Braunton Burrows, which, 
though filled with water in winter and in wet weather, are in summer during 
the day nothing but a mass of hot dry sand. 
During the day it is usually concealed in crevices, or beneath the dense 
tufts of Murchantia polymorpha, Sphagnum, and especially amongst the 
moss Hypnum cuspidatum, or may be found in the hollow stems of the 
Umbelliteree growing in marshy places. When suspended in the aquarium 
A. campestris will, according to Mr. Latchford, at once descend to the 
bottom of the tank by means of a mucus cable, crawl with retracted ten- 
tacles towards the sides, which it ascends, opening the respiratory orifice 
upon reaching the surface, 
A. lwvis is an adept in forming slime-threads, and has been observed to 
form a mucus-thread, eight mches in length, in less than three minutes. 
M. Normand records that LZ. parvulus, which is synonymous with the 
present species, spun a filament over two yards in length. 
Fossil.—According to Kennard & Woodward, A. lwvis is known as a 
Pleistocene fossil from the deposits at Swalecliffe, about a mile west of 
Herne Bay, East Kent; it was also found in Middlesex, in the section dis- 
