HOMING AND FINDING FOOD 



to the same outward and homeward track, or at least in guiding 

 it back to its hiding-place. Yet even scent is occasionally at 

 fault, for on one occasion a Limax fiavus was accustomed to make 

 nightly excursions to some basins of cream, which were kept in 

 a cool cellar. When the basins were removed to a distant shelf, 

 the creature was found the next morning ' wandering dis- 

 consolately ' about in the place where the basins had formerly 

 stood.^ 



A remarkable case of the power of smell, combined with great 

 perseverance on the part of a Helix, is recorded by Furtado.^ 

 He noticed a Helix aspersa lodged between a column on a 

 verandah and a flower-pot containing a young banana plant, and 

 threw it away into a little court below, and six or seven yards 

 distant. Next morning the snail was in precisely the same place 

 on the flower-pot. Again he threw it away, to the same distance, 

 and determined to notice what happened. Next morning at nine 

 o'clock, the snail was resting on the rail of a staircase leading up 

 to the verandah from the court ; in the evening it started again, 

 quickening its pace as it advanced, eventually attacking the 

 banana in precisely the same place where it had been gnawed 

 before. 



For further instances of the power of smell in snails, see 

 chap. vii. 



Slugs have been known to make their way into bee -hives, 

 presumably for the sake of the honey.^ ' Sugaring ' the trees at 

 night for moths will often attract a surprising concourse of slugs. 

 Sometimes a particular plant in a greenhouse will become the 

 object of the slugs' persistent attacks, and they will neglect every 

 other food in order to obtain it. Farfugium grande is one of 

 these favourite foods, " the young leaves and shoots being always 

 eaten in preference to all other plants growing in the houses ; 

 where no Farfugiums were kept the slugs nibbled indis- 

 criminately at many kinds." '^ The flowers of orchidaceous plants 

 exercise a special attraction over slugs, which appear to have 

 some means of discovering when the plants are in bloom. " I 

 have often observed," says INIr. T. Baines, " that a slug will travel 



^ W. A. Gain, quoted by H. W. Kevv in Nahoralist, 1390, p. 307, an article to 

 whicli I am mucli indebted. - Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5) xvi. p. 519. 



3 Science Gossip, 1882, pp. 237, 262. 

 * H. W. Kew, Naturalist, 1893, p. 149, another most valuable article. 



