244 Kew : On the Pairing of Limax maximus. 



were on the branch of a sycamore, from which their bodies 

 hung- down perpendicularly. One gathers, however, that 

 there was no slime-cord, the slug's remaining- attached to the 

 branch by the further extremity of the foot. When this position 

 had been assumed, the copulatory organs, which began to appear 

 during some preliminary manoeuvres, were suddenly shot out, 

 and the next moment they twisted round one another in spiral 

 form. Thereafter some contraction of the organs took place, 

 the turns of the spiral becoming pressed together, and the organs 

 appearing like flat twisted bands. Finally, while the organs 

 were still twisted together, Purkyne bound them close to the 

 genital openings, and took the animals home for further 

 study. * 



Further observations — relating certainly to Limax maximus 

 — have been published by Bladon (1858), Baudelot (1863), Daniel 

 (1875-6), Tye (1878), Roebuck (1884: from notes by Mr. Ashford), 

 Laurent (1895), and Adams (1898) ; and unpublished observations, 

 relating to the same species of slug, have been made by Mr. 

 Standen, Mr. Tye, and the writer. 



Bladon's account is based on several observations, presumably 

 made at Pontypool. It has the advantage of being independent 

 of anything previously written, the author believing the facts to 

 be new : 



• 



Towards midnight, in the close, sultry summer nights from June to 

 September, a couple of Limaces may be observed slowly following- each 

 other, with the mouth of the second resting- on the tip of the tail of the first 

 . . . the second following- every sinuosity of the tortuous course taken by 

 the first, without the least deviation, for a considerable time (I watched one 

 pair upwards of a quarter of an hour without any alteration in their relative 

 positions); they then ascend some wall, or other perpendicular surface near 

 where they happen to be ; when they finally stop the second crawls along- 

 side the first ; they then crawl round each other circularly, during which 

 time they emit a large quantity of mucus, which forms a patch two inches 

 or two-and-a-half inches in diameter : as soon as the mucus has acquired 

 a sufficient consistence, they begin to twist round each other, and detach 

 themselves from the wall, hanging only by a cord formed of the thickened 

 mucus ; as they hang suspended, they still keep twisting themselves round 

 each other, forming a double spiral ; they continue this turning motion ten 

 minutes or more, until at last their bodies can hardly be distinguished from 

 each other, thus forming a regular cone about two inches in length and the 

 base one or two inches in diameter, hanging from its apex ; during- this 

 time the mucus cord keeps lengthening slowly (in one instance it reached 

 15 inches in length; I ha T- e not seen any less than 8 or 9 inches) ;' the 



* E. Purkyne, Die Begattung des Arion empiricorum, Archiv fur Naturge- 

 schichte, XXV. (1.859), PP- 26 "7 1 - 



Naturalist, 



♦ 



