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LIMAX TENELLUS IN GLOUCESTER WEST, HEREFORD 

 AND MONTGOMERY. 



By C. OLDHAM. 



(Read before the Society, December 8th, 1920). 



The occurrence of this slug in places so far apart as the Forest of 

 Rothiemurchus, the New Forest, and Kent suggests that it is generally 

 distributed in Britain — it has not been observed in Ireland — although 

 we know very little of its precise range. So far as my own experience 

 goes it is, like L. cinereo-niger, restricted to natural woodlands, and it 

 is useless to look for it in cultivated country or in plantations ; but 

 given primseval woodland it accommodates itself to varied circum- 

 stances, and I have taken it on fungi in beech, fir, oak and birch 

 forest indifferently. Ignorance of mycology debars me from naming 

 all the different ground fungi on which it feeds, but speaking broadly 

 it prefers the more succulent kinds, such as Riissida and Boletus, 

 including B. edulis. 1 have taken it in tufts of Hypholoma fasciculare, 

 and, like Arion subfusais and A. intermedhis, it is not deterred by the, 

 to us, repulsive odour oi Phallus impudicus. It feeds chiefly at night, 

 secreting itself during the day among dead leaves or in a mouse-run or 

 some other convenient cranny underground where its detection is 

 difficult, but during wet weather it feeds at all hours, and search on 

 warm rainy days between September and February offers the best 

 chance of success. In October, 1920, I took L. tenelhis in three 

 counties for which there were no previous records. It occurred in 

 woods of oak, hazel, and beech, a mile to the south of Symonds Yat, 

 (Gloucester West), associated with L. cinereo-niger and A. ater. There 

 was a scarcity of ground fungi here and the specimens I took were all 

 feeding on Jlydnum fepandum, a species that is neglected in the beech- 

 woods on the Chilterns if certain others are available. In Haugh 

 Wood near Woolhope (Hereford), a large stretch of oak-hazel coppice, 

 I found tenellus feeding on several different ground fungi, associated 

 with A. ater, A. intermedius, and A. circnviscripttis. Some three 

 miles N.W. of Welshpool (Montgomery) it was found on fungi in an 

 oak-hazel wood with a sprinkling of planted beeches, associated with 

 A. ater, A. subfusais, and A. intermedius. In all three localities the 

 specimens taken were referable to the var. cerea, the common form in 

 this country. 



