WITH REFERENCE TO HORTICULTURE. 



97 



298. The slugs which frequent the garden are the JLiniax agrestis, L, 

 cmereus, and L. ater. The L. agrestis, the commonest, is of a greyish 

 colour, and from one to two inches long ; the L. cinereus is, on the con- 

 trary, from three to five inches in length, of a greyish or dusky colour, 

 with darker spots and stripes ; and the L. ater is easily known by the jet 

 black and wrinkled skin of its back. 



299. Both snails and slugs are furnished with tentacula placed in front 

 of the head, and which, by a singular process, can be drawn entirely within 

 it. The mouth is armed above with a semi-lunar horny jaw, having its 

 outer or cutting edge furnished w^ith one or several serratures. On the right 

 side or neck of the snail and slug there are three apertures, that nearest 

 the head being the respiratory orifice, the next the anus, and the third the 

 exit for the organs of generation. Snails and slugs crawl on the flat sole 

 which constitutes their foot and belly, and which is very muscular : but 

 progression is principally performed by a pair of muscles which extend from 

 the tail to the fore part of the belly, running along the middle of the foot. 



800. Snails and slugs are hermaphrodite and oviparous. They deposit 

 their eggs under clods of earth, loose stones, or in the ground, in which the 

 parent digs, with its foot, a circular hole about an inch deep. The eggs 

 vary from twelve to thirty in number ; they are white, oval or round, 

 about the size of a common shot, with a smooth soft skin, which is entirely 

 membranous in the slug, but in the snail contains innumerable minute cal- 

 careous grains, always in a crystalline state, and usually of a rhomboid 

 figure. They are, in ordinary seasons, hatched in about three weeks after 

 being laid ; but the time is regulated much by temperature, so that in cold 

 seasons it is greatly retarded. The young issue from the egg in the likeness 

 of theu" parents, active and furnished with every organ ; and the young 

 snails have even then a shell fitting then- size and strength. The length of 

 life of the snail or slug cannot be determined. The shell of the snail is 

 usually completed befoie the termination of the second year, when the 

 animal may have been said to have reached maturity. The snail and the 

 slug are very patient of injury, often recovering from severe wounds ; repairing 

 their broken shells, and reproducing such parts of their bodies, posterior to 

 the neck, as may have been cut away. In winter, snails and slugs retire 

 under stones, clods, or into the crevices of walls : the slugs become merely 

 less active than usual, but the snails hybernate ; and to protect them from 

 annoyance during this dead sleep of a winter s continuance, they seal up the 

 apertures of their shells with a horny membrane. (Abridged from an article 

 in Gard. Mag. for 1841.) 



301. The natural uses of the snail appear to be to serve as food for rep- 

 tiles, birds, and the smaller quadrupeds, such as foxes, badgers, weazels, 

 hedgehogs, &c. The blackbird and thrush are remarkably fond of them, 

 and may be seen and heard flying off" with snails in their bills, and after- 

 wards lighting on trees, and breaking the shells against the branches. 

 There is some apparent reason for supposing that the worm is more useful 

 than injurious to plants, but none that we know of in favour of the snail 

 being useful either to gardeners or farmers. 



302. The snail retires under the cover of foliage or some other pro- 

 tection from the sun and dry air during the day, and comes abroad to feed 

 during the night, after ram, or when the weather is cloudy. It selects in 

 preference tender seedling plants, or the leaves of maturer plants which 



