KEW: THE FACULTY OF FOOD-FINDING IN GASTROPODS. 1S] 
Mr. Baines found that the creatures seldom allowed many nights to 
pass before discovering tallow which he put down in _ places 
‘where they were least likely to find it.’ A fact recorded by Jeffreys 
of Fusus antiguus seems to afford conclusive proof that that animal 
possesses the faculty of perceiving its food at a distance, for it is said 
to assemble in large numbers around a bait which is completely 
hidden and inaccessible : 
Quantities of the common ‘almond-whelk’ of dealers in shell- fish (Fusus 
pletely covered with stones, which are piled up like a cairn, partly to prevent the 
carcase being carried away by the tide, and also because the fishermen have 
a scruple about eating shell-fish which have been fed on much carrion. On the 
next turn of the tide the heap of stones is visited and the whelks are found on the 
surface in great numbers, having been apparently attracted by the smell of the 
bait, but unable to get at it.? 
Observations which have been made on various gastropods in 
captivity are sufficient alone, I think, to establish the fact that 
a faculty of the kind indicated is possessed by them. Swammerdam, 
in moving a little fresh food towards the snails which he kept for 
a considerable time in his chamber, found that they ‘immediately 
perceived it by the scent, and crept out of their little shells and 
came to it.’* Mr. James Hardy, in 1845, mentioned having seen 
a black slug, which he had placed in a jug, crawl forward ‘in a direct 
line to some raw. beef ;’* and I have seen various kinds of slugs— 
kept from time to time in glass-jars—approach their food in this 
manner. It is even said to have been shown, I believe by Moquin- 
Tandon, that slugs and snails—frequently seen to ‘proceed in a 
direct line tewards substances of which they are fond ’—will stop or 
change their direction if the substances are removed or put in 
a different place.* That the creatures often find food in captivity 
almost immediately after it is placed in the vessel in which they are 
kept, and much more quickly than could be the case if they found it 
accidentally, has several times been remarked upon. I have often 
noticed this in slugs. Miss Hele, who has kept many kinds of 
‘ T, Baines, ‘ Garden,’ v. (1874), 201-2 
* ‘ British Conchology,’ i. (1862), xxvili-xxix. 
* Swammerdam, ‘ Book of Nature,’ pays transl., p. 49- 
* James Hardy, oe iii. (1845), 10 
® See ‘ Ann. and Mag. Hist.’ (2), ix. aoe 155. 
_ ® Asmall piece of bread: placed at the bottom of a glass-jar, a eas deep, in which we 
Six marsh-slugs (Agriolimax levis),a young Arion ater, and a Limax ‘mus, was 
K in less than ten minutes by four of the marsh-slugs. The Tones did not caged to it in the 
f hour during which I rvation. The Arion had urbed 
rion 
was sulky. When the in, one of the marsh-slugs was in the Nathan ‘ol the jar, 
another on the oi about ecriieeg up, etd ee rest near the top. 
89 
