I02 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. ID, NO. 4, OCTOBER, I^Ol. 



knife it maintained its horizontal position, swinging to the perpendicular one on 

 finally quitting it and becoming suspended. It then spun a thread of about four 

 inches, and when contact was broken on its reaching a support, the thread immedi- 

 ately shrunk into a minute, scarcely visible point of slime. 



38. Ashford, C. Land and Freshwater Mollusca round Cln islcburch. 

 South Hants., Op. cit., vol. 5, 1887, \\ 158. 



Agrioliniax Icevis. 



39. W. J. Science Gossip., vol. 23, 18S7, p. 71: 



. . . Whilst looking at my aquarium, I saw hanging to a lea. ... a 

 small grey slug of about three-eighths of an inch long ; it was twisting itself about and 

 gradually letting itself down, till at length it reached the water, when it suddenly 

 dropped. 



40. Webb, W. M. Tom. cit, p. 124. 



A large Amalia sowerbyi let itself down three inches or so before 

 dropping. 



41. Zykoff, W. Bemerkung iiber fadenspinnende Schnecken, Z?^?/. 



Anz., vol. 12, 1889, p. 584. 

 The author was watching the growth of young /Irion empiricoriim 

 =^. ater., which had hatched from the egg under his care, and which 

 lived, from August to the end of May, in a vivarium, covered with a 

 bell-glass half-a-foot high. On one occasion, late at night, some of the 

 slugs were observed to have crawled to the top of the interior of the 

 bell-glass, and to have commenced to descend by threads; and some, 

 without having touched the bottom, reascended by the threads to their 

 former place. The habit was afterwards observed on several occasions, 

 until an accident caused the death of the slugs. 



42. Collinge, W. E. Land and Freshwater Mollusca of Oxford- 

 shire, Cotichologist, vol. I, 1 89 1, p. 12 : 



Z. arboruin, 



43. Kew, H. W. The faculty of food-finding in Gastropods, 

 JVaturalist, 1893, pp. 150-1: 



. . Observations of a surprising character have been made also by Mr. 

 Robert Warner, F.L.S. When no other way to the orchids is open to the creatures, 

 as he stated in 1880, 'they crawl up some plant or rafter, and ... let them- 

 selves down to the spikes.' In 1889 the observer assured me that he had actually 

 seen many little slugs suspending themselves by slime-threads from the rafters, and 

 'descending on the spikes' of . . . Odontoglossum alexandrm ; and thus many 

 spikes, thickly wadded round with cotton-wool (which the slugs could not travel 

 over) and growing in pots surrounded with water, had been lost. It can hardly be 

 supposed, I think, that the slugs, having tried to approach the flowers in the 

 ordinary manner by crawling over the pots and stems and finding themselves inter- 

 cepted by moats of water or collars of cotton-wool, would deliberately ascend the 

 rafters for the purpose of lowering themselves to the spikes. . . . We can well 

 imagine, however, that, having once detected the presence of the flowers, the 

 creatures would instinctively endeavour to reach them, and observers familiar with 

 the use of slime-threads by slugs will understand that individuals happening to ciawl 

 along the rafters until immediately above the spikes would be likely, in reaching out 



