Mollusks. 1037 



and sundry retractile and expansile evolutions of its guiding organs. I observed of 

 the two, that although they touched objects readily with their tentacula, one never 

 allowed the long prime tentacula to touch those of the other ; drawing them in when 

 approximating, when they could, as it were, if the popular credence be true, gaze into 

 each other's eyes. It made a tour of the jug, while the other, as if insensible of its 

 absence, continued eating on. At length it also paused, twenty minutes after it had 

 commenced, and set forth on an excursion. By this time the other and larger one 

 had returned to the repast ; not deliberating for the onset. The other also wheeled, 

 and came forward as before; but by moving the mass, so exceedingly discomposed the 

 elder one, as by way of eminence I shall term it, that he drew himself together most 

 sulkily, squatting like an old rabbit, flat upon the ground, with one aperture 

 open to give notice, as it were, of his friend's voracious impropriety. When the 

 floor was struck, the younger one retracted his tentacula and left off in alarm, but 

 speedily resumed operations. Some individuals of the human species make much noise 

 in their feeding, not so this snail. Silent as the movement of his great foot, I only 

 once or twice heard a snack, as it were, to attest his ardent appetite. About half-past 

 7 he declared himself satisfied, and laid his head round the other way. He however 

 made another attack before going to bed. He left off at 8 o'clock. His partner all 

 the while maintained his position unaltered. At 9 o'clock both were sleeping frater- 

 nally together, separated only by a blade of clover, which, for the sake of variety had 

 been presented to them, their backs turned to the beef. In the evening I put the ves- 

 sel whence they had been taken into its former place, and put the jug in which they 

 now were, on a shelf above it, about half a foot from the floor. In the morning I found 

 the jug and beef deserted, and the snails nowhere to be seen. On examining, how- 

 ever, their former retreat, I found them at the very bottom of the vessel, concealed 

 under the decaying herbage and withered stalks. The height of each vessel was about 

 four inches and a half. How they directed their way so readily up and down the per- 

 pendicular sides, as they had never before been removed, it is not easy to say. Per- 

 haps the odour of the decomposing herbage might lead them back to their late abode. 

 It is thus that in the heat of summer many of the slugs appear to have a place to which 

 they withdraw ; as, while they hold their revels at nightfall, few dare to brave the ar- 

 dour of the solar beams. In proof, also, of its carnivorous predilections, I have been 

 told the following circumstance of the black slug, which, after my own experiment, I 

 do not doubt. An old man near Berwick-upon-Tweed, going out one morning to mow 

 grass, found a black slug devouring, as he supposed, a dead mouse. Being of an in- 

 quisitive turn, and wishing to ascertain if it were really thus engaged, he drew the 

 mouse a little back. When he returned in the evening, the mouse was reduced al- 

 most to a skeleton, and the snail was still there. So that snails, or at least slugs, not 

 only feed on herbage, devour worms, and enjoy the luxury of a slaughtered compan- 

 ion, but they also aid in removing dead animal matter, not despising it even in its 

 fresh condition, and even seizing live prey, if within their reach and subject to their 

 mastery. An analogous instance occurs in the periwinkles of the London markets 

 (Littorina littorea), usually regarded as phytophagous. Many refuse to eat them, as- 

 signing as a reason that they are often found adhering to the bodies of drowned sea- 

 men cast on shore. They certainly love carrion, as upon dead land animals cast into 

 the sea between tide-marks, they are often found clustered in exceeding numbers, as if 

 gratified with a pabulum congenial to their nature. — James Hardy ; Gateshead, May 

 29, 1845. 



