BRITISH SLUGS AND SNAILS. 
233 
and genera, which looks like a number of very hard sums in algebra ; and, as in 
such cases, we think it would be nice to know the answer, or genus, before 
starting. Of course it is right and proper to insert those tables in our floras and 
the like, but we are convinced that the quickest way to sicken a person of botany 
is to give him a plant and a key. The bulk of the book is an admirable descrip- 
tive account of our commonest British plants. It is, in fact, a small flora, written 
in as interesting a style as is compatible with the largely-systematic form ol 
treatment necessary. The introduction of points of interest in connection with 
fertilization, adaptation to environment, use to mankind, &c., help to relieve the 
more purely diagnostic parts. Some of the illustrations are excellent, others as 
poor. They seem to have been borrowed from two sources, one good and one 
bad ; compare, for instance, fig. 4 on p. 62, which is as good as one would wi.sh 
in such a book, with the miserable object on the next page. Happily, the good 
ones are in a very large majority, but they are not always rightly named. The 
arrangement of the orders and genera is that of Hooker’s SliitUnl’s Flora, but it 
would not have greatly impeded reference to that work to have removed the 
gymnosperms to the end of the series. In this year of grace 1896, their inter- 
polation between dicotyledons and monocotyledons as gymnospermous dico- 
tyledons augurs serious out-of-date-ness on the part of the author. 
A. B. Rendle. 
BRITISH SLUGS AND SNAILS.* 
All true Selbornians will of course admit a more or less passing interest in 
these creatures as part of the economy of nature : but few, if one may judge from 
the pages of Nature Notes, seem to have taken to the study of them. Possibly 
there is some excuse for this. Snails do not readily commend themselves as pets 
— especially’ in our gardens — and fancy patting a slug on the back ! Nevertheless, 
apart from the interest that accrues in collecting their shells, there is a great deal 
to be done in the way of observation concerning their respective habits, life-his- 
tories, and food. It is quite astonishing how little in this line is known concerning 
them. Even so simple a matter as what they “eat, drink, and avoid” is com- 
paratively unknown with respect to many, especially the smaller kinds. 
Not every slug or snail is such a foe to the gardener as has been believed. 
Here possibly we arrive at the source of another hindrance to the would-be student 
— How are the different kinds to be distinguished, where are they to be sought 
for, and how treated when captured ? 
It was to meet difficulties of this sort that Mr. Adams’s little book, now in its 
second edition, was written ; and we think the present edition will be found all, or 
almost all, that the tyro can desire in the way of help to start him on his career. 
He will find in the introduction the necessary instructions how, when, and where 
to collect and preserve the shells, whilst the remaining portion of the work should 
guide him in discriminating, with the aid of the plates, the different species. And 
even though the names the author selects are not always those most usually employed 
by conchologists, the more correct ones can readily be found out afterwards. Nor 
is information wanting to the culinary curious as to how to cook and eat certain 
of the more succulent kinds. A glossary follows, in which the meanings of the 
Latin names and of the technical terms employed in the work are given — not always 
perhaps in a manner to satisfy the scrupulous philologist or an exacting classical 
scholar, but quite near enough for the purpose. 
Appended are tables drawn up by Air. W. Denison Roebuck, showing the 
distribution of the various species in the British Isles. So conscientious has 
this recorder been that he declines to include any species in the list for any district 
* The Collector's Manual of British Land and Freshwater Shells. By Lionel 
Ernest Adams, B.A. Illustrated by G. W. Adams, A. Sich, and the Author. 
Second edition, pp. 214, ii pis., 8vo. Leeds: Taylor Bros., 1896 [8s. plain, 
los. 6d. coloured]. 
