Kew : On the Pairing of Limax max buns. 



de couleur brune. — Au bas pendait, eomme un cul-de-lampe, un cone ren- 

 verse^ d'un blanc de lait et transhieide comme l'opale. 



C'etaient deux limaces qui avaient file un cordon transparent a L'atde de 

 la mucosite qui transsude de leur corps, pour se suspendre la tete en bas 

 et se/ tordre comme un double pas-de-vis. 



Le cone blanc etait forme par les orgurtes 

 reproducteurs egalement tordus en spirale (Fig\ 2). j 



The slug-s, says the author, thus celebrated 

 their wedding- between earth and heaven. 

 He did not observe, however, any reciprocal 

 intromission of male organs, the fertilisa- 

 tion being, apparently, external. The 

 intertwined organs exhibited remarkable I 

 movements, and even made the whole 

 suspended body oscillate. The author 

 refers also to observations of two of his 

 neighbours: Mr. Maeysz, several years 

 previously, had seen two large slug's 

 suspended from a garden-g-ate ; and Mr. 

 Liez, in December 1852, saw two of 

 these animals (unnamed), one pursuing- 



the other in his garden, 



At length these 



latter ascended a wall to a height of 

 0,60 m., from whence, at the angle of 

 a projecting- stone, they descended by a 

 cord 0,20 m. long-, entwining- their bodies 

 and protruding copulatory organs ; after 

 two minutes, however, they fell to the 

 ground."* 



Emanuel Purkyne records an observa- 

 tion made in a wood near Prague in June 

 1857. In this case, as in that of Werlich, 

 the slugs were black, and Purkyne falls 

 into the error of naming them ' Avion 

 empiricorum. ' His drawings, moreover, 

 evidently finished from published figures 

 bi .Irion, show slug's of that genus; but it 

 is clear from the author's figures of the 

 genitalia that the subject of the observa- 

 tion was a largfe Li max. The animals 



Fig. 2. — After Boch- 

 Buschmann, Memoires de la 

 Societe des Seienees natu- 



rollos du Grand-Duche de 

 Luxembourg, 1. (1S5;). Re- 

 duced, 



* Boch-Buschmann, Observations sur L'accouplement des Limaces, 

 Memoires de la Societe des Sciences naturelles du Grand-Duche" de Luxem- 

 bourg", I. (1853), pp. 91-3; IL (1854), pp. SO-S. 

 1901 August 2. 



