74 ANIMAL LIFE 



need for protection that every flowering plant possesses 

 some means of defence : hardness or prickliness, irri- 

 tating lime salts, or acrid and oily juices. Against 

 the attacks of some slugs, however, even such defences 

 as poison may fail. The great black A rion will eat 

 almost anything ; but all the slugs of our gardens are 

 not equally to blame for the immense damage to bulbs, 

 seedlings, and plants that is often set down to them 

 indiscriminately. The field Limax and the keeled 

 Limax are the two most culpable destroyers, and it is 

 to these that the disappearance of bulbs is largely due. 

 The great Limax, on the other hand, does not appear 

 to touch green food, but subsists on moulds ; the 

 margined slug on lichens only. They forage night 

 after night over the same beat, and return by day to 

 the same hiding-places. Latter's work (quoted on 

 p. 300) helps one to identify them. 



Forest, moor, and plain support an abundance of 

 mammals. Herbs are sought after by the largest and 

 smallest of beasts. All the ' ungulates ' elephants, 

 horses, cattle, and deer are herbivorous, and live in 

 troops led by an old male. Less imposing, but more 

 numerous than these, are the rabbits, mice, squirrels, 

 and beavers, great in their powers of destruction, 

 though individually small, and some, such as harvest- 

 mice, scarcely bigger than insects. Monkeys, where 

 protected, as in India, become a pest, and not only 

 destroy the fruit of the forest, but do immense damage 

 to gardens. 



The different ways in which mammals gather 



