CHAPTER LXXI: THE LAND SLUGS 



Family Limacid/e 



Shell present or absent, internal or external, respiratory 

 cavity under mantle; radula and jaw well developed. Chiefly 

 herbivorous mollusks, creeping about in woods and gardens, 

 after rains, at dusk, or while the dew is on the ground. Some 

 suspend themselves by glutinous threads from twigs or leaves. 



Genus LIMAX, Linn. 



Shell rudimentary, oblong, flattened, thin, behind the head, 

 and buried under mantle; body long, flexible, keeled, with eyes 

 on tips of upper pair of tentacles ; jaw smooth, arched and beaked. 

 Mantle free in front, with orifice of long sac near the right posterior 

 margin. 



Nocturnal mollusks with keen smell, sight and hearing, 

 which like damp places and lay their eggs underground. Toads 

 and frogs eat them. 



The Great Gray Slug (L. maximus, Linn.) is five or six 

 inches long when it stretches itself out at full length to rest after 

 a toilsome journey after food. The slimy trail is an exudation 

 of mucus, from a gland. The rounded body is ashen or pale 

 brown, alternately stripedand dotted. 



M. Moquin-Tandon noticed one rainy day in the botanical 

 gardens at Toulouse, two Limax maximus approaching a rotten 

 apple from different directions. He changed the position of the 

 apple several times, placing it at a sufficient distance to be sure 

 they could not see it, but they always hit it off correctly, after 

 raising their heads and movmg their long tentacles in every 

 direction. It then occured to him to hold the apple in the air, 

 some centimetres above the head of the Limax. They perceived 

 where it was and raised their heads and lengthened their necks, 

 endeavouring to find some solid body on which to climb to their 

 food. — Cooke. 



The senses of smell and sight are lost in slugs from which 

 the tentacles are cut. 



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