Slugs as Mycophagists. A. H. R. Buller. 273 
have seen one small slug in a greenhouse at Winnipeg. However, 
I have never yet seen‘a slug in any of the woods of central 
Canada. 
Since fleshy fungi, e.g. Russulae, Lactarii, Amanitae, Cor- 
tinarii, etc., occur in great variety and numbers in the woods 
of central Canada, and since slugs do not occur in these woods 
or are very rare there, it seems safe to infer that fleshy fungi, 
such as Russulae, Lactarii, Amanitae, Cortinarii, etc., in no way 
depend upon slugs for the dissemination or germination of 
their spores. 
SOME CONCLUSIONS. 
We may conclude from the above observations: (1) that slugs, 
under natural conditions, may attack and feed upon most 
species of fleshy Hymenomycetes occurring in woods, (2) that 
the attacks of the slugs often seriously interfere with the pro- 
duction and liberation of spores by individual fruit-bodies, 
(3) that most species of fleshy fungi are in no way protected 
against slugs, and (4) that very many species of fleshy fungi 
do not depend upon slugs for the dissemination or germination 
of their spores. 
THE FINDING OF FUNGI BY SLUGS. 
Before eating a fungus, a slug must first find it. Now, 
according to zoologists, the common slugs of English fields and 
woods, e.g. Limax maximus and Arion ater, although possessing 
eyes, can see clearly for a distance of only I or 2 mm. and find 
their food chiefly by their sense of smell*. We must therefore 
suppose that slugs find the fungi upon which they feed chemo- 
tactically, i.e. by changing their direction of locomotion in 
response to the chemical stimulus arising from the odoriferous 
substances which the fungi give off. 
PREVIOUS CHEMOTACTIC EXPERIMENTS. 
As evidence that slugs find their food by their sense of smell 
A. H. Cooke cites the following observationsf : 
“M. Parenteau was one day walking along a dusty high-road, 
when he noticed, near the middle of the road, an empty bean-pod 
and two Arions eating it. Attributing the meeting of feeders 
and food to mere chance, he was walking on when he noticed 
a second bean-pod, and, about two yards away from it, a third 
Arion, hurrying straight towards it. When the Arion had yet 
* V. Willem, Arch. Biol. x11, 1892, p. 57, cited from A. H. Cooke, Cambridge 
Natural History, Molluscs, 1895, p. 185. , 
+ A. H. Cooke, Cambridge Natural History, Molluscs, 1895, pp. 193-1094. 
These observations were first recorded by Moquin-Tandon in his Mollusques 
de France, I, p. 130. 
