KEW: THE FACULTY OF FOOD-FINDING IN GASTROPODS. 147 
slugs ;' and further, that M. Commandeur, who had been experiment- 
ing with starch and iodine, and had left a jar containing the mixture 
in his garden, found, after three weeks, that dozens of slugs and 
snails had congregated in the jar from all parts of the garden ; 
and, attracted it is supposed by the smell of the iodine, the creatures 
continued to travel to it all the summer long.” 
As Woodward remarked in 1851, slugs are ‘attracted by fungi or 
any odorous substances.’* Mr. Edward Step tells me that he once 
saw, on a hedge-bank bordering Epsom Common, four great grey 
slugs (Zimax maximus) bearing down, full-sail, from as many direc- 
tions, upon a red amanita, Agaricus (Amanita) rubescens. y 
fungi, it has recently been remarked, possess an indescribable damp 
cellar or fungus smell ‘such as slugs delight in.’ 4 
Slugs sometimes, perhaps rarely, enter bee-hives, ee soneait he 8 
the sake of the honey.» They constantly seek out the 
(generally a mixture of treacle and rum) which is commonly parasit 
on tree-trunks for the purpose of attracting nocturnal Lepidoptera.* 
Most Lepidopterists, I suppose, are familiar with the visits of the 
animals ; sometimes they assemble even plentifully, and Mr. Porritt, 
who has been good enough to watch them carefully, tells me that 
they sip the bait with great relish. No doubt, like the Lepidoptera, 
they are attracted to it by scent. The Rev dhe G. Wood, in 1863, 
mentioned that when engaged in ‘sugaring’ he had often been 
Knapp’s belief in a special sense, he added that they were ‘attracted 
apparently by the scent of the sweet mixture, and induced by its odour 
to leave the SAE Dicey! in which they had been cunningly ensconced 
during the day-time.” In Churchyard-bottom Wood, Highgate, 
I have often seen an unusual number of slime-trails about sugar- 
Stains on the bark of the trees. 
* J. M. Hayward, ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ 1872, p. 1327. 
‘Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ 1861, p. 216, quoting a communication published in the ‘ Revue 
Honticole > and see : also ‘Gardeners’ bgp crvacta . (863), 389, 1 Hite gs to Seen perhaps, 
Some st , which at exposed t Highgate, where slugs and snails 
are pee: ai was not visited by man 
* S. P. Woodward, ‘ Manual,’ ed p.'12. 
*C. R. Straton, ‘ Nature,’ xliii. (x8¢0), 9. 
5 See note, signed E. H. R,, referring no doubt to the great grey slug (Limax maximus)— 
“the first time I g one of my hives I mistook it for the tail end of an adder’ —in 
“Science ce Gossip,’ 1882, pp. 237, 262. 
* See, for r instance, ‘ Wood’s Field Naturalists’ Hand ; J. E. Harting (on the 
erat grey slug (Limax maximus), ‘ Zoologist,’ (3), 11, vaeee "a7, a aH. H. Higgins (on the 
ig Linax marginatus), Address to iy a Naturalists’ Fila Club, Jan. 30th, 1891, 
Pune AS Wood, ‘ Iilustrated Natural History,’ ii’. (1863), 407 
May 1893. 
