26o MOLLUSCA 



Family Limacid/e 

 Agriolimax Icevis, Miiller 



A cosmopolitan slug (Suter). In 1867 Mr Fereday stated that 

 he had seen ten common English slugs on one cabbage in his garden 

 near Christchurch, and he used this as an argument for the intro- 

 duction of birds, such as thrushes. 



This was probably the species he referred to. It appears to be 

 common in New Zealand. 



Agriolimax agrestis, Linn. 



Common in meadows, fields and gardens (Suter) ; Auckland, Wel- 

 lington, Taranaki, Nelson, Greymouth, Christchurch, Dunedin, etc. 

 Suter writing in 1917 says: 



In 1887 I was living on a ten-acre clearing in the Forty- Mile Bush, sur- 

 rounded by native bush. This clearing had been laid down in grass about 

 ten years earlier, and was used for feeding horses. Everywhere Agriolimax 

 agrestis was common, but these slugs never penetrated the native bush. 

 They evidently must have been brought to that place with the grass-seed, 

 and no doubt in the egg-stage. In a similar way introduced slugs were 

 brought to Campbell Island. They were, if I am not mistaken, a variety 

 of the common A. agrestis or A. Icevis. 



Musson and Hedley were both of opinion in 1890 that A. Icevis 

 was indigenous in Australia; but the latter in 1892 considered that 

 all the species oiLimax described as native to Australasia are referable 

 either to L. maximus, flavus, gagates, or agrestis, all believed to be 

 introduced by man from Europe. 



Limax maximus, Linn. 



Reported from Dunedin by Captain Hutton, and from Taranaki 

 by Mr W. W. Smith. 



(In Tasmania this slug is found to be infested with a mite, possibly 

 the same as is found in England under similar circumstances. Mr 

 Hedley says of it: "should it prove to be identical with the parasite 

 attendant on the European mollusc, this fact would argue that the 

 animals migrated in the adult stage, and not in the eggs." He further 

 states that the species of Limax (all introduced) in Australia, have far 

 outstripped their shell-bearing relatives.) 



Limax flavus, Linn. 



This species is rather common now, and has been reported from 

 Dunedin, Greymouth and Taranaki. Mr Suter says it is especially 

 injurious to garden vegetables. 



