KEW : THE FACULTY OF HOMING IN GASTROPODS. 3II 



in a garden at Louth, I saw a slime-trail which started and terminated 

 at a daisy-plant in the border of a flower-bed, showing that a mollusc 

 had returned, after an excursion, to the spot from which it started. 

 The animal — a \?irgQ L.Jlaviis — was at rest under the shelter of the 

 leaves of the plant. The length of the trail was ^bout 19 feet, but 

 no part of it was more than four feet from the plant. On several 

 successive mornings, Mr. Ashford saw a L. inaximus (distinguished, 

 amongst other things, by a peculiarly-shaped spot in the mantle) 

 in the same chink between the rough timbers that shore up the 

 upper sides of a well, and it was seen out on a foraging excursion 

 during one of the intervening nights. The fact that access to the 

 well was apparently to be gained only by an aperture made by the 

 breaking away of one of the hinges of the lid, makes this a striking 

 instance of the exercise of memory, if such be the guiding faculty. 

 The slug was seen to come out at this aperture on the night on 

 which it was observed abroad. It made straight for its food on 

 gaining the open air, and was found next morning in its old retreat. 

 An unusually bright yellow L. flavus was noticed by Mr. Ashford, 

 morning after morning, beneath a small damp board upon a heap of 

 dead leaves. On one, at least, of the intervening nights, it was 

 absent, and was found in its usual place next morning. In his 

 greenhouse at Swinton, Mr. Standen had a fine L. maximus, which 

 lived in a niche in the wall near the floor, and regularly climbed up 

 the wall and along one of the bench-supports to the plants above ; 

 ' from early spring to autumn this slug kept to the one track exactly, 

 both going and returning.' The distance travelled, from the niche to 

 the edge of the plant-stand, was about five feet. Mr. Standen also 

 tells me that his friend Mr. Ray Hardy has for some months seen in 

 his scullery a large L. flavus which regularly crawls to a sink from 

 a hole near the water-pipe, and invariably keeps to a well-defined 

 semi-circular track. Mr. Gain finds that the tree-slug (Z. arhoruni) 

 in captivity is in the habit of excavating a grave-like trencn with 

 perpendicular sides, its own length, and about an inch in depth, in 

 which it lies. Either the original excavator or its companion, 

 Mr. Gain adds, ' has occupied the trench on two occasions subse- 

 quent to its formation. On examination, I have failed to discover 

 eggs in the trench or m the surrounding earth.'* 



Mr. Sherriff Tye tells me that he has observed that in the green- 

 house a slug will forage for nights in one spot, and return to the 

 same hiding-place many times. The hole in a tree-pot, he says, is 

 a favourite lurking-place for half-grown L. viaxiimis and L. agrestis ; 

 they creep under the laths of the staging, which are a quarter of an 



* W. A. Gain, ' Naturalist,' 1889, p. 56. 



Oct. 1890. 



