IOS KEW : NOTES ON ARION ATER AND OTHER SLUGS. 



When searching at night, with a lantern, one may find them in large 

 numbers, crawling on the paths by the road-sides, and in Churchyard 

 Bottom Wood. The form cinereofusca ! slightly exceeds rufofusca ! 

 in numbers.* In July one was seen feeding upon a crushed slug of 

 its own species, and in September another was noticed eating a 

 cabbage-leaf. On one occasion three were found under a large piece 

 of paper, upon which, judging from the colour of the fasces, they had 

 been feeding. In June I saw this species ! devour slime left from the 

 caudal gland of Avion ater. 



In June, July, and August specimens were kept in captivity. 

 They ate bread, dead Amalia marginata, and leaves of lettuce freely, 

 and also leaves of Solatium dulcamara when decomposing. A fungus 

 {Phallus impudicus) popularly known as the ' stinkhorn,' was put into 

 a jar in which three slugs were kept on 8th August, and was eaten 

 voraciously during the night ; by the morning of the ioth, however, 

 all three slugs were dead. Death was caused, I imagine, not by the 

 poison contained in the fungus, but by its very powerful and fetid 

 smell. More than once my slugs died when bad smells were given 

 off by decomposing matter, which was allowed to remain too long in 

 the jars. 



The animals spent much time in following each other about, the 

 head of one being upon the tip of the tail of the other, but copulation, 

 was not actually observed. 



AMALIA MARGINATA. 



An adult of this species, which was kept for a short time, in 

 August, fed on dead larva? of Euchelia jacobcecs. Six larvae, just killed 

 in boiling water, were given to it, three of which were devoured 

 within two hours. It was not, however, till fifteen days later that 

 the sixth was consumed. 



LIMAX FLAVUS. 



A large specimen, taken on a wall at Hampstead, on 14th June, 

 was kept for a short time, nothing being given it for food except 

 a piece of lump sugar. I never saw the slug gnaw the sugar, and it 

 gradually decreased in bulk, and became darker in colour, and died 

 in nine days. When dead it was of a very dark colour. On putting 

 it into water the dried slime was dissolved, and the dead slug became 

 surrounded by a solution of the brightest yellow colour. 



* Other slugs I have taken by the Muswell Hill Road are Avion ater, vans. 

 plumbea !, brunnea !, and ntfa !, A. hovtetisis, Amalia marginata !, Lima* 

 agrestis !, and L. maximus, vars. fasciata ! and mutteri. 



Naturalist,. 



