FOOD OF SLUGS 



wishing to ascertain if it were really thus engaged, he drew the 

 mouse a little back. When he returned in the evening, the 

 mouse was reduced almost to a skeleton, and the slug was still 

 there.^ Indeed it would seem almost difficult to name anything 

 which Arion atcr will not eat. Dr. Gray mentions - a case 

 of a specimen which devoured sand recently taken from the 

 Leach, which contained just enough animal matter to render it 

 luminous when trodden on in the dark ; after a little time the 

 faeces of the slug were composed of pure sand, united together 

 l>y a little mucus. A specimen kept two days in captivity 

 was turned out on a newspaper, and commenced at once to 

 devour it. The same specimen ate dead bodies of five other 

 species of slugs, a dead Unio, pupae of Adimonia tanaceti, 

 part of the abdomen of a dragon-fly, and Pears' soap, the latter 

 reluctantly.^ 



According to Simroth ^ and Scharff^ the food of several of our 

 British slugs, e.g. Limax maximus, L. jiavus, Arion suhfuscus, 

 A. inter mcd'kis, consists of non-chlorophyllaceous substances 

 only, while anything containing chlorophyll is as a rule refused. 

 On the other hand L. agrestis and Amalia carinata feed almost 

 entirely on green food, and are most destructive in gardens. 

 The latter species lives several inches under ground during the 

 day, and comes to the surface only at night. It is largely 

 responsible for the disappearance of bulbs, to which it is ex- 

 tremely partial. L. marginatus ( = arhoruni Bouch.) feeds ex- 

 clusively on lichens, and in captivity absolutely refuses green 

 leaves and a flesh diet. It follows therefore, if these observa- 

 tions are correct, that the popular notions about slugs must be 

 revised, and that while we continue to exterminate from our 

 gardens those species which have a taste for chlorophyll, we 

 ought to spare, if not encourage those whose tastes lie in the 

 opposite direction. 



Limax agrestis has been seen devouring the crushed remains 

 of Arion ater. Five specimens of the same species were once 

 noticed busily devoiu"ing a May-fly each, and this in the middle 

 of a large meadow, where it may be presumed there was no lack 



1 Zoologist, ii. p. 296 ; iii. p. 833 ; iv. p. 1216 ; iii. p. 1036 ; iv. p. 1216 ; iii. 

 p. 1037. 



- Ann. Nat. Hist. ii. 1838, p. 310. =* H. W. Kew, Naturalist, 1889, p. 103. 

 * Zcit. wiss. ZooL xlii. y. 203 f. •' Sci. Trans. Ii. Duhl. Soc. (2) iv. p. 520 f. 



