THE FACULTY OF FOOD-FINDING IN 
GASTROPODS. 
H. WALLIS KEW, 
London 
SLuGs, snails, whelks, etc., as is well known, possess a wonderful 
food-finding faculty. By some means or other they are certainly 
able to detect the presence of substances of which they are fond at 
some little distance. So remarkable indeed is this faculty that the 
creatures have even been credited, on that account, with the 
probable possession of some mysterious special sense in no way 
analogous to any of our senses. Thus Knapp, in 1829, wrote in 
his celebrated ‘ Journal of a Naturalist ’ :— 
No creature seems less qualified to commit the depredations which it does 
than ne garden snail. We grieve to see our fruit mangled and disfigured by 
reatures, but cannot readily comprehend by what means they obtain the 
does a plum, a fig, a nectarine, or other fruit ee to ripen on the wall, and long 
before any sensible odour can be diffused from it, even before an experienced eye 
can detect the approach to maturity, than those patina the slug and the snail, 
will advance from their asylums, though remotely situate, and proceed by very 
i. faculty. . . . If they possess the faculty of este ade in them it must 
eScN tee aire any delicacy we can comprehend. Thus, 
ihetiag human means of comprehension, which appear inadequate, more 
ey ec “tg to be endowed with intelligences for effecting iatentons, 
of which we have no perception, and which we have no capacity for defining. * 
The Rev. J. G. Wood, in 1864, was inclined to agree in this 
view, thinking it probable that the creatures were able to direct 
their course by means of ‘some perceptive power of which we 
Ourselves have no consciousness.’? This, of course, is quite 
Possible; for among the lower animals, as Sir J. Lubbock has 
observed, there may be many senses quite different from ours ; 
and, consequently, the familiar world which surrounds us may be 
a totally different place to such animals, and may be full of 
*(J. L. Knapp], * Journal of a Naturalist,’ 1829, pp. us 
* J, Wood, ‘ Our Garden Friends and Foes,’ 1864, p 
st saad Lubbock, ‘Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence < Pi 1888, p. 192. 
May 1893. 
