1 Jury, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 67 
HABITS. — 
The Vaginula slugs are almost exclusively nocturnal in their habits, though 
they may be found early during wet mornings on the move, usually, however, 
engaged then in returning to their haunts. ‘They creep readily over the ground 
and even along perpendicular walls, and travel relatively long distances without 
intermission. These haunts are—beneath logs, old timber, stones, and rubbish 
generally; underneath the floors of out-houses; in bush-houses or shade-gardens; 
in dry walls; and wherever in fact dark damp hiding-places near the ground can be 
found. They also enter cracks and other openings into the soil, and even burrow 
into this when it is loose, being able by extending their bodies to squeeze 
through quite narrow passages. Thus they will insinuate themselves amongst 
the roots of plants, especially when these form a more or less compact mass. 
In the latitude of Brisbane they almost entirely hibernate; and are thus to be 
found during May, June, and July both night and day, not only in any of the 
above hiding-places but also often beneath stones some inches from the surface. 
Here they usually occur, congregated together, both young and old. When 
removed, however, although at first they are motionless and contorted, they are 
not long in displaying evidence of vitality and thus proceed to “make off.” 
When crawling over rough surfaces they are wont to discharge from the surface 
of the foot a thin layer of transparent mucous, which soon dries and becomes 
2 transparent shining film. ‘This, however, they do not do to the same extent as 
do ordinary slugs (Limax, Arion, &c.) 
They are oviparous, and deposit their batch of eggs beneath stones or 
logs, usually in shallow cavities. Each slug lays forty* or more eggs, and these 
are both large and conspicuous, as described. They issue from the side of the 
body, beneath, as represented natural size on Plate CXIX. The eges have a moist 
sticky surface that causes them to adhere, to a certain extent, to foreign bodies. 
They are placed as laid ina single mass—the individual eggs being held to- 
gether not only by their natural adhesiveness, but also by threads of a clear 
‘mucous-like matter. The entire lump may also be covered by fragments of 
slug-excrement that may serve to mask their true nature. The process of egg- 
laying seems to occur at intervals throughout the summer months, being 
continued until almost the end of April; and as each slug is both a father and 
a mother—though congress of two may be required that reproduction ensue— 
a few individuals soon give rise to a very numerous progeny, and hence the 
hordes in which they occur. ‘The time oceupied in arriving at maturity has not 
been ascertained. So also the duration of their natural lives. 
NATIVE COUNTRY. 
There are good grounds for considering that though these particular species 
of Vaginula Slugs have not been described as occurring in any other country, 
or have not been identified with any of the species noted as existing elsewhere, 
they are to be regarded as importations. The grounds on which this conclusion 
is based are the following :— 
(1.) For a considerable time after they had been first noticed in Brisbane, 
no evidence of their occurring in the district beyond the small area in which they 
were then to be met with was forthcoming, notwithstanding close scrutiny into 
the nature of our local molluscan fauna on the part of others as well as especially 
on that of the writer had been made: nor have explorations by naturalists in 
different parts of Queensland revealed their presence further afield amongst 
other related denizens of the scrub and bush. 
(2.) They are quite of a different type from the other members of the failym 
Vaginulide that have been reported as occurring in Queensland, and which are 
prismatic, instead of being plano-conyex in section, and which hence—as well as on 
other grounds—have been relegated to the genus Atopos by Simroth (Zeitsch. f. 
Wiss. Zool., vol. ii. 1891). This objection is not, however, wholly tenable, since 
Vaginula and Atopos co-exist in the Philippine Islands. 
* An individual of the light-coloured species, V. Hedleyi, laid whilst under observation fifty- 
five eggs, and twenty-two eggs were found in apposition to an example of V. Leydigi. 
