GATTY MARINE LABORATORY, ST ANDREWS. II3 



continued moisture of the season, and the introduction of the 

 sycamores all combined to favour the attacks. 



Mr Boog Watson, of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, 

 mentioned that he had known these snails attack laburnum, a 

 tree poisonous to the human subject, for instance, in a mental 

 case affected with Bulimia. The man got access to fresh logs 

 of laburnum which were drying before a fire, stripped off the 

 juicy bark, and ate it ravenously. In a short time he became 

 deadly sick, but, fortunately, he had just taken a full meal of 

 porridge and milk, so that emetics acted rapidly and effectu- 

 ally, but it was several days before the man regained his 

 normal condition. Yet rabbits during the great snow-storm 

 of the early months of 1881 greedily fed on the same bark 

 day after day without apparent effect, just as the hares daily 

 nibbled the shoots of a yew hedge in front of the windows at 

 Murthly, though dried yew proved fatal to a man who rubbed it 

 in his hands, chewed, and swallowed it. 



Mr Southern of the Fisheries Department in Dublin kindly 

 obtained from Mr Forbes, head of the Irish Forestry Department, 

 the information that in the summers of 191 1 and 19 12 several 

 hundreds of the Weymouth pine {Finus Strobus) were killed at 

 Avondale, in County Wicklow, by slugs taking the bark off the 

 stems. The species was not known, "but a small yellow one 

 was the worst, and the large black one {Ario?i ater) was 

 also numerous." Mr Murray's remark that Helix aspersa 

 may even attack spruce is thus in a sense corroborated. Yet 

 snails can be of direct service to man, as in the well-known 

 instance of Helix pomaiia^ whilst indirectly they are so in 

 the case of the little Buli??ius acutus upon the blades of grass 

 on the wild cliffs of Killipheder in North Uist, since the sheep 

 greedily feed and fatten on snails and grass. It can readily 

 be credited that slugs may do great damage were it only in 

 respect to their multitudes. Thus when the avenue was opened 

 through the grass at Nevay Park, the dark soil for nearly half 

 a mile was covered with swarms of the grey field slug 

 {Agriolimax agresiis), not one of which had previously been 

 noticed. Again, it is a curious fact that slugs show acute 

 discrimination in regard to the potatoes they attack. Thus 

 Mr Moncur of West Nevay Farm finds that they do not attack 

 the " Arran Chief," but greedily drill holes in " King Edward," a 

 pink-eyed potato, and cause its rapid decay. 



