MANNER OF FEEDING IN TESTACELLA SCUTULUM. 285 



tete dans la terre, et le ployant en deux parties suivant chaque 

 cote de leurs corps elles le devorent en surete." 



Lovell Reeve* quotes du Gue and Gassies, but the passage 

 from the latter is abridged. 



A short description, but one to the point, is given by Paul 

 Fischert: — "They pursue Lambrici by excavating subterranean 

 galleries, and in order to seize them they dilate their buccal 

 orifice, and protrude the lingual bulb covered with teeth in the 

 form of fish-hooks." 



Try on, in his * Manual of Conchology,'! quotes Jeffreys' account 

 in full. 



The following is given by H. de Lacaze-Duthiers§ : — " The 

 proceedings of Testacella are the results of its habits — in fact, it 

 feeds entirely on earthworms ; the latter are extremely lively, and 

 retreat into their burrows with great agility at tbe slightest alarm; 

 in the evening, when they only come out a few centimetres, the 

 Testacella must seize them by no less rapidly darting at them 

 with its tongue. If it wishes to spear its prey, it must pursue 

 it, and therefore elongate itself in order to be able to pene- 

 trate into the worm's hole. The worm, sometimes held merely 

 by a few of the hooks on its enemy's tongue, draws back, 

 clinging by the aid of its setae to the walls of its home, and drags 

 its voracious pursuer with it ; it is then a necessity for the 

 Testacella to extend itself and follow its victim in order to seize 

 it more completely." 



The idea of pursuit is still kept up, and the reasons why the 

 slug elongates itself are a trifle involved and incomplete, while 

 no more detailed description of the action is given than in the 

 case of previous writers. 



Three species of Testacella have been found in the British 

 Isles — to wit, T. haliotoidea, Drap., 2\ maugei, Ferus., and T. 

 scutulum, Sowerby, though the claims of the third to be con- 

 sidered a distinct species are not yet fully recognised. This 

 question will be dealt with further on, insomuch as this is the 

 species with which my experiments were made. 



* 'British Land and Freshwater Mollusks' (1863), pp. 28, 31. 

 f 'Manuel de Conchyliologie ' (1883), p. 450. 

 t Vol. iii. p. 11 (1884). 



§ " Histoire de la Testacelle" Archives Zoologie Experimental, series 2, 

 vol. v. (1887), p. 466. 



