NOTES AND QUERIES. 305 



conspicuously different in colour from the general tint of the body ; and the 

 sole, or lower surface of the foot, is divided longitudinally (by two furrows) 

 into three differently -coloured bands, the median one being white, and the 

 two lateral ones dark. Speaking roughly, the typical examples may be 

 described as being uniformly black, with a white line down the middle of 

 the black, and a longitudinal median white fascia on the foot. It, however, 

 varies to a large extent. Some specimens have occasional white blotches 

 ou the dark body, and others are uniformly black, not even the keel being 

 light. This slug has occurred in these islands, but as not very much 

 attention has been paid to slugs in Britain we know next to nothing of its 

 range. Forty years ago the Rev. B. J. Clarke, who paid considerable 

 attention to the Irish slugs, found this form at Spire Hill, Queen's 

 County ; and Mr. Robert Ball found it in the County Cork. Twenty 

 years later the Rev. A. Merle Norman, when studying the inland Mollusca 

 of Somersetshire, found a specimen in Cleeve Combe which he describes as 

 "altogether pitchy black, without spot or marking of any kind, and fully six 

 inches long." This was evidently the var. nigra of L. cinereo-niger. On 

 the Continent the typical L. cinereo-niger has a wide range. It is found in 

 France, Italy, Germany, Transylvania, Scandinavia, &c, and it would be a 

 point of very great interest to determine its actual range in the British 

 Isles. To this end I should be glad to be favoured with specimens of this 

 (and indeed of any British slugs) from as many localities as possible. 

 Among the slugs there is a wide and interesting field of investigation open, 

 and but few have attempted the study. — Wm. Denison Roebuck (Sunny 

 Bank, Leeds). 



ANNELIDES. 



Earthworms and their Distribution. —At a time when so much 

 interest has been aroused in the habits and life-history of Earthworms by 

 the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on that subject, I feel sure that a 

 paragraph in a letter received not long since from my friend Mr. E. E. T. 

 Seton, of Carbery, Manitoba, will prove acceptable. Darwin says that 

 Earthworms occur in nearly all parts of the world, even in Iceland, and 

 I believe the United States (I have no copy of his work at hand), but my 

 friend writes of his neighbourhood that, " Notwithstanding Darwin (peace 

 to his ashes !), there is not the ghost of an Earthworm within hundreds of 

 miles south, and never has been." This, it must be remembered, is in a 

 country the great fertility of which is always attributed to the layer of black 

 surface-soil a foot or more thick, and extending for hundreds of miles either 

 way, if not entirely across the continent of North America. At first thought 

 one would naturally regard this as " vegetable-mould" due to the action of 

 worms, but under the circumstances it seems as if some other explanation 

 were necessary. — R. M. Christy (Chignal St. James, near Chelmsford). 



Y 



