A TREE-SLUG. 380 



" So where the Humming-bird in Chili's bowers, 

 On murmuring pinions, robs the pendent flowers ; 

 Seeks where fine pores their dulcet balm distil, 

 And sucks the treasure with proboscis-bill."* 



Among molluscous animals, the Onckidium of Singa- 

 pore offers a curious instance of what may be termed an 

 Arboreal Slug. It is a limaciform animal, which is found 

 crawling among the foliage of the trees in the woods, 

 and appearing more particularly after heavy showers. 

 During the heat of the day it collapses its broad, flattened 

 body, and retires under the shade of large leaves, where 

 it remains apparently in a half-torpid condition. It 

 leaves no slimy trail behind, when it crawls, as the 

 Limax and Snail do. It is of a chesnut-brown colour, 

 minutely tuberculated, with numerous small, dark, scat- 

 tered spots, and with the raised middle line of a pale 

 brown ; the eyes are terminal on the long superior pair 

 of tentacles. 



Another remarkable molluscous form is the Ccrithium 

 truncatum, which is found generally in brackish water 

 in Mangrove swamps, and the mouths of rivers. Some 

 times it crawls on the stones and leaves in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and sometimes it is found suspended by glu- 

 tinous threads to the boughs of trees, and from the roots 

 of the Mangroves. The animal of Megalamastoma sus- 

 pensum has been found in the West Indies, by the Rev. 

 Lansdowne Guilding, hanging from trees in the same 

 manner; and Mr. Gray states that he has found the Rissoa 

 similarly suspended. There is another very handsome 

 species, closely allied to the preceding, which I have fre- 

 quently found crawling in a slow and languid manner on 



* Botanic Garden. 



