228 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



its slime-track, had crept over the gravel for a distance of about 



21 feet. 



Experiment III. The other Phallus fruit-bodies opened one 



by one, and with them I made several other experiments like the 

 one just described. In one of them a 

 slug came at night about 24 feet over 

 the gravel to two fruit-bodies which were 

 in one pot, ate a piece out of each of 

 the two stipes, and then crept between 

 the bottom of the pot and the gravel 

 (Fig. 82, no. III). When I raised the 

 pot in the morning, in order to take it 

 to a place where the Blue-bottle flies 

 could not eat up all the green slime, I 

 found the slug beneath. The slug was 

 kindly identified for me by Mr. P. T. 

 Deakin as Limax maximus var. obscura. 



On three other nights I placed pots 

 with expanded Phallus fruit-bodies in 

 the middle of the gravelled area, but no 

 slugs visited them. This may have been 

 due in part to the paucity of slugs in 

 the borders and in part to the weather 

 being rainy and windy. The successful 

 experiments were performed on still 

 nights. Slime tracks were only found 

 in the morning upon the gravel when 

 a slug had visited a Phallus during the 

 previous night. 



The above observations show that 

 Limax maximus, under natural con- 

 ditions, guided by its sense of smell, 

 sometimes travels from 21 to 24 feet 



FIQ. 81. Phallus impudicus. The fruit-body has been visited by slugs which have 

 eaten holes in the middle and base of the stipe. Blue-bottle and other flies 

 have completely removed the green spore-containing fluid from the gleba, so 

 that the global ridges are now freely exposed to view. The veil hanging from 

 beneath the gleba is unusually well developed. Photographed at Scarborough, 

 England, by A. E. Peck. natural size. 



