34 FOOD OF SLUGS AND SNAILS chap. 



meat, otlier snails (when dead), vegetables, and paper.^ The 

 common Stenogyra decollata of the South of Europe has a very 

 bad character for flesh-eating habits, when kept in captivity. 

 Mr. Binney ^ kept a number for a long time as scavengers, to 

 clean the shells of other snails. As soon as a living Helhi w^as 

 placed in a box with them, one would attack it, introduce itself 

 into the upper whorls, and completely remove the animal. One 

 day a number of Succinea ovalis were left with them for a short 

 time, and disappeared entirely ! The Stenogyra had eaten shell 

 as well as animal. This view of Stenogyra is quite confirmed 

 by Miss Hele, who has bred them in thousands. " I can keep," 

 she writes,^ " no small Helix or Bulimus with them, for they at 

 once kill them and eat them. They will also eat raw meat." 



Even the common Limnaea stagnalis, which is usually re- 

 garded as strictly herbivorous, will sometimes l)etake itself, 

 apparently by preference, to a diet of flesh. Karl Semper 

 frequently observed the Limnaeae in liis aquarium suddenly 

 attack healthy living specimens of the common large water newt 

 {Triton taeniatus), overcome them, and devour them, although 

 there was plenty of their favourite vegetable food growing 

 within easy reach.* The same species has also been noticed to 

 devour its own ova, and the larvae of Dytismis. Limnaea peregra 

 has been detected capturing and partially devouring minnows in 

 an aquarium, when deprived of other food, and Dr. Jeffreys has 

 seen the same species attack its own relatives under similar 

 circumstances, piercing the spire at its thinnest point near to the 

 apex.^ Z. stagnalis, kept in an aquarium, has succeeded in 

 overpowering and partially devouring healthy specimens of the 

 common stickleback.*^' 



Powers of Intelligence, Homing-, and finding Food. — It is 

 not easy to discover whether land Mollusca possess any faculties 

 which correspond to what we call intelligence, as distinct from 

 their capacities for smell, sight, taste, and hearing. Darwin 

 mentions " a remarkable case, communicated to him by Mr. 

 Lonsdale. A couple of Helix pomatia, one of which was sickly, 



^ J. S. Gibbons, Quart. Journ. Conch, ii. p. 143. 



^ Bull. Mus. C. Z. H(trv. iv. p. 193. 



3 I. c. p. 362. ■• Animal Life, p. 59. 



5 Zoologist, 1861, p. 7400; Brit. Conch, i. p. 108. 



e H. Ullyett, Science Gossip, xxii. (1886) p. 214. 



^ Descent of Man, i. p. 32.5, ed. 1. 



