SLUGS. 75 



refuge under them. Much execution may be done by these 

 and similar traps, but the enthusiast regards these devices 

 with contempt, for he knows that the enemy may be thinned 

 but that he will never be exterminated by such means. The 

 legitimate sport is the night hunt, the search, by the light of 

 a lantern, of cabbage or lettuce leaves cast down in the 

 favourite haunts of the slug. On these, on a warm night 

 after a light rain, it may be found by the score of all sizes, 

 from the tiny glistening speck no larger than a pin's head, 

 to the full-grown animal as long and as thick as a man's 

 little finger. The slug-hunter recognises two species of 

 slugs. There are others he knows, notably the great 

 black slug of the woods, but these concern him not. 

 The two garden species are the white slug, slimy, active, and 

 enterprising, thin in figure, and seldom over an inch in 

 length ; and the brown slug, very much larger and heavier, 

 short and dumpty in figure, triangular in section, only slightly 

 slimy to the touch, and with a coat of the toughness of 

 india-rubber. 



Hitherto all efforts to turn the slug to profitable use have 

 failed, and mankind have been content to destroy without 

 utilising it. The snail, we know, makes a good and 

 nourishing soup, and nothing but prejudice prevents it 

 from becoming a valuable article of food. But the snail, 

 living as it does in its shell, has but a soft skin, while the 

 slug possesses a coat of extraordinary toughness, which 

 would seem to be an obstacle in the way of its ever becoming 

 useful for culinary purposes. Inventive minds have sug- 

 gested other uses for it. An enthusiast was convinced that 

 the slug would make an admirable glue, while another has 

 pointed out that the skin of large specimens, carefully 



