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thing ? For the last few weeks a fierce crusade has been carried on in the papers 
against this barbarous mode of advertisement. Among the foremost in this good 
work has been Mr. J. B. Hilditch, of Richmond, a member of the Lower 
Thames Valley Branch of the Selborne Society, who has been active in the agita- 
tion conducted by that branch respecting Sudbrook Park and other matters of local 
importance. In one of his letters to the Times , Mr. Hilditch appeals to the 
Selborne Society to take steps for legislation in order to prevent such outrages on 
the picturesque ; and meanwhile he offers “in such a good cause to take charge of 
correspondence, and receive the names of sympathisers and supporters until a 
public meeting can be called, or some concerted action taken.” The Lower 
Thames Valley Branch has already passed a strong resolution in support of Mr. 
Hilditch’s scheme, and the Central Council, on the motion of Mr. T. F. 
Wakefield, has expressed its sympathy with the movement, and determined to do 
all in its power to support the opposition to this new species of Vandalism. 
Lovers of the beautiful will not require urging to use every effort in their 
power for the removal of these abominations, which threaten to vulgarise the 
whole country, and obscure the beauties which are still left in our island. Mr. 
Punch has come valiantly to the aid of the right side in this matter, and we trust 
that there are many Selbornians who will do battle against the vulgar and greedy 
spirit which would gladly see the Pyramids placarded over with “ Puffer’s Peerless 
Paint,” the Castle of Chillon covered with “ Clutterbuck’s Corn-plasters,” and 
Stonehenge with “Snooks’s Soap,” in the spirit of the smart Yankee advertise- 
ment agent, who yearned to paste an announcement of “ Bouncer’s patent Bug- 
killer ” across an unusually beautiful sunset. 
Papyrophagous Slugs. — In reference to the paragraph under this heading 
in the current number of Nature Notes, I may say that I have undoubted proof 
that snails eat paper. Some time since I left a roll of unmounted photographs 
on the drawing-room table, in the centre of which was a bowl of flowers ; when 
opening them a day or two afterwards to my surprise a small snail fell out, and I 
found one of the photos eaten through three thicknesses of the paper, the hole 
being about the size of a pea. The snail had, I suppose, come out of the flowers, 
but why it should prefer a photograph to its natural dietary remains a mystery. 
Apropos of snails, we have one residing under a heavy bookcase in our dining 
room, which is seldom moved. Every now and then it leaves its track all over 
the carpet for two or three nights in succession, the track always starting from, 
and ending again, at the edge of the bookcase ; then we shall not see it for days 
or weeks, when it will again appear to have been all over the room. This has 
been going on for more than a year, and we have tried every device to catch it, 
but all to no purpose. Now, occasionally, as a matter of charity, we put a cabbage 
leaf or something of the sort to give it a meal : a very little seems to satisfy it, 
and it has always disappeared before anyone is about in the morning, so that it 
also may well be called a mysterious snail. Hannah F. White. 
In reply to Miss (or Mrs.) A. M. Parmenter’s enquiry as to the paper-eating 
propensities of slugs, I take the following from Turton’s British Shells : — “ I have 
often observed the common garden snail (H. aspersa) eating the posting-bill from 
the walls of the environs of London, after a shower.” 
R. Marshman Wattson. 
Sluggish Gymnastics. — On August 9th, whilst ascending the zigzag path 
which commences the Susten Pass at the upper end of the Gadmenthal, I noticed 
something suspended in mid-air from the branch of a pine tree, which extended 
across the track at about eight feet from the ground. On going to see what it 
was I found, to my surprise, a large brown slug, about three inches long, and pro- 
bably weighing over an ounce, hanging from the branch by a fine thread formed 
of slime, which copiously covered the whole surface of the foot, and was being 
drawn out from the posterior extremity much in the same way that treacle or 
viscid honey is drawn out from a spoon. The slug appeared to be greatly enjoy- 
ing this novel mode of descent, curving its body in various directions, and often 
twisting round upon the axis of the thread. Its progress being at the somewhat 
slow rate of one inch in two minutes, this apparently risky adventure could not 
have been undertaken with any idea of saving time in reaching the ground, and. 
