Slugs as Mycophagists. A. H. R. Buller. 275 
slug (Limax) upon a moistened dinner plate and with his mouth 
blew gently upon it in a horizontal direction. He found that 
the current of air so produced had no particular effect upon 
the slug’s movements. He then put a cup fungus, Peziza vesi- 
culosa, between his mouth and the slug and continued blowing. 
The slug then immediately changed its behaviour. If the slug’s 
head had been turned away from the experimenter, the slug 
raised it, moved its tentacles about in the air, soon turned the 
front part of its body round, and then steered, as the blowing 
continued, straight toward the fungus. That the slug sought 
its food by its sense of smell and not by its sense of sight, Stahl 
showed as follows. He blew over the Peziza as before and 
waited until the slug had approached to within about I cm. of 
its surface. He then took another Peziza, placed it upon the 
opposite side of the plate, and blew over it toward the slug. The 
new current of air was thus made to move in the opposite 
direction to the first one and to pass over the second fungus, 
the slug, and the first fungus successively. Stahl then observed 
several times that the slug, although only I cm. away from the 
first fungus and many cm. away from the second, turned 
round, left the near-by first fungus, and crawled directly toward 
the distant second one from which the current of air was coming. 
It was only when the slug was almost touching the first fungus 
that Stahl was unsuccessful in trying to induce the slug to turn 
round and seek the second. 
NEW CHEMOTACTIC EXPERIMENTS. 
With a view to testing the supposition that slugs find their 
food, and in particular find fungi, by their sense of smell, I 
have made a series of experiments, under conditions as natural 
as possible, upon the attraction of Limax maximus to Phallus 
impudicus and to certain Hymenomycetes. Before giving an 
account of these experiments, however, it will be necessary for 
me to make a few preliminary remarks upon both the Limax 
and the Phallus. 
According to Simroth and Scharff, the food of Limax maximus 
consists of non-chlorophyllaceous substances, while anything 
containing chlorophyll is as a rule refused*; and W. A. Gain 
considers Limax maximus a very dainty feeder, preferring fungi 
to all other foods}. Stahl{ divided slugs and snails into ommnivora 
and specialists and states that Limax maximus is a specialist 
which feeds chiefly on fungi. 
Limax maximus, like most other slugs, hides during the day 
in crevices under stones or in the soil, and only emerges from its 
* A. H. Cooke, loc. cit. p. 31. ¢ Ibid. p. 32. 
t E. Stahl, Joc. cit. p. 15. 
