KEW : THE FACULTY OF FOOD-FINDING IN GASTROPODS, 149 
Fresh-water snails, also, sometimes congregate in good numbers 
round substances of which they are particularly fond. I remember 
having seen common pond-snails (Zimunea peregra) clustering upon 
fish-heads, etc., which had been thrown into a dirty little stream near 
Louth ;* and a large gathering of Zimnea stagnalis which had come 
together to feed on an old newspaper in a pond on Chislehurst 
Common, ‘so that for the space of about a square foot nothing else 
could be seen,’ was described a few years ago in ‘Science Gossip.’ , 
snails.*| While some plants remain quite untouched, it is often found 
to be nearly impossible to grow others unless the strictest precautions 
are taken. us, a writer in the ‘Garden’ in 1884, dealing with 
the cultivation of alpine plants, remarks that while he had never 
seen a slug eating or even ona plant of Ramondia pyrenaica and 
gentians were never much attacked, the creatures on the other 
hand were always ‘voraciously set’ on Aster alpinus, about the 
most vigorous of all the plants of a genuine alpine character. The 
next most difficult plant in his collection to keep from slugs was 
Phlox divaricata ; and some of the delicate Campanulas, he added, 
such as Campanula zoyst, it was next to impossible to keep.* 
foreman of the Herbaceous Ground in the Royal Gardens, Kew, as 
Mr. J. Burtt Davy informed me in 1891, found it almost impossible 
to grow Mutisia decurrens (a Chilian composite which climbs by 
means of tendrils) because it was so eagerly devoured by the slugs, 
plant had been grown by the wall of Museum No. 1, and had 
flowered well, but it had been protected by a thick layer of cinders 
all round the roots. Farfugium grande is another food-plant which 
' “ Naturalists’ World,’ iii. (1886), 62. 
T. D. A. Cockerell, ‘Science Gossip,’ xxi. (1885), 211. Bivalves, which have 
to assem) Be In a similar manner, have been credited with nea power of peor food ai 
distance. The skull of a fox, placed ina ditch to. soak (the 0 bserver inte nded to clean a ity 
found, after four da n wards 
bari were counted, and we number on the whole skull . could not have been far alae of two 
Message Unless ithe creatures were the ditch, the observer remarked, 
t have efron a a distance to. enjoy ‘the treat.’ ee R. L. King, ‘Pistdium pusillum 
attracted | by the amas of a fox,’ ‘ Zoologist,’ iv. (1846), 1266.) 
* All the slugs of this c country belonging to t robs ceo and Agriolimax, 
I believe, feed reds. on the leaves of phanogams, so sea a great extent ap Se gn ; those 
of eons rere ang genus (Liwaxr) nore ever, subsist mere pcos on lichens, fungi, The 
tree-sing (ZL Te decee cos laiton, ot n by Saisie: carried out by Mr. Gain, is yw most 
gen om robably uae sp Raa 
* See G. eS London's ‘ Mag. Nat. Hist.,’ iv. (1832), 530. 
* J.C. L., ‘Garden,’ xxv. (1884), 206. 
May 38 1893. 
