INTllODUOTION. XV 



The first author to describe British slugs was Dr. Martin Lister, one of 

 the celebrated trio who founded the modern scientific study of natural 

 history in England, and it is to this able investigator that we owe — 

 amongst numerous other things— the first faunal work on British mollusca 

 and their earliest anatomical investigation. 



In 1678 he published under the title of "Animalium Anglise Tres 

 Tractatus .... Alter de Cochleis tum Terrestribus turn Fluviatilibus" 

 an account of the British land and freshwater mollusca which from a 

 scientific point of view will bear comparison with many works published 

 even in modern times, and it is to the great glory of Lister that he paid 

 careful attention to all aspects of his subject, studying it from every point 

 of view. He was a capable anatomist, and published subsequent works 

 dealing with the internal structure of our mollusks. 



In this work of 1678 the first three slugs known a.s British : 



1. Limax maximus, 



2. Ag-riolimax agrestis, 



3. Arion ater, 



were for the first time described and figured, although the existence of the 

 first-named species was indicated twelve years before in Merret's " Piiiax 

 Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum." 



In 1681 Lister published a supplement to his work, of which supple- 

 ment a second edition appeared in 1685, but in this only the red variety 

 of the last-named species is brought forward. 



The next addition to our list was also by Dr. Lister in 1685 and 1694, 

 when, in his "Conchology" and " Exercitationes Anatomicte," he figured 

 and described the anatomy of our fourth species : 



4. Limax flavus. 



The fact that the figure does not bear the letter A, by which Lister was in 

 the habit of distinguishing the English species in his general works, may be 

 safely disregarded. 



The next faunal work in which the slugs were included was not pub- 

 lished for nearly one hundred and fifty years after Lister's, but in the 

 meantime the effect of the Cuvierian impetus to the study of the natural 

 sciences at the beginning of the nineteenth century was seen in the 

 description as new or the introduction into our lists of four species. 



In 1819 Fdrussac published his splendid work : Histoire Naturelle 

 gdndrale et particuli^re des Mollusques Terrestres et Fluviatiles, in which 

 he described and cited a British habitat for 



5. Testaeella maug-ei, 

 our first recorded shell-slug. 



