Snips and Snails and Slug-Hunting Tales

Unless I’d lost a contact lens, I never thought I would find myself outside scanning the ground at 10 p.m. on a cold January night. But after reading The Secret World of Slugs and Snails: Life in the Very Slow Lane by David George Gordon, I decided to go on a snail hunt. I’ve always liked the little guys—they always seem so gentle and friendly—but I discovered a new fondness after reading this book.

I left my apartment building and headed down the street to the park, hoping to find some of these nocturnal creatures stuffing themselves on foliage. A few slime trails glittered in the LED streetlight’s glow. In The Secret World of Slugs and Snails, I had read how slugs and snails propel themselves by secreting mucus that allows them to easily slide over surfaces that defy imagination (including razor blades and sharp glass). This slime is even being used in cancer research as a way to target specific malignant cells without affecting surrounding healthy cells.

Every once in a while, I stopped and pushed aside some wet brown leaves with the toe of my shoe. My breath curled around the flashlight’s beam like steam around a train’s headlight in a film noir. I had nearly submitted to the cold and turned home when I pointed the beam at a wall, where the light fell upon a three-inch-long light grey slug with mottled stripes down its back. Deroceras reticulatum: the Grey fieldslug.

The little fellow in front of me stretched his eyes out, maybe wondering about the bright light that had interrupted his nighttime foraging. The skin that skimmed the concrete wall looked fragile and translucent—like veins in a leaf or the flesh of an orange. These tiny creatures are much more complex than anyone gives them credit for—they’re highly evolved to slowly and steadily survive in a world that rushes on above their heads.

My favorite anecdote in the book comes from Charles Darwin. He wrote of a pair of snails who were placed in a barren garden. The healthier snail left a trail of slime over the wall toward a more abundant garden next door. Observers assumed the snail had said sayonara to its weak buddy, but a day later, they were surprised to see the strong snail return to accompany its mate to the land of plenty.

As I made my way home, I thought about the coexistent nocturnal world I’d never taken the time to notice. If I hadn’t tried to look at the world on the slug’s level, would I have noticed the smell of the soil, the millipede hiding in the gravel, or the beautiful empty snail shell half hidden in the dirt?

David George Gordon will be at the Pacific Northwest Garden Show this Sunday 2/27 giving a seminar called Forging a Lasting Peace with Slugs and Snails at 2:15 PM.

He will also be speaking at Sky Nursery on Sunday 3/5 at 11 AM.

For more information about David George Gordon and a full list of his upcoming events, please check out his website: davidgeorgegordon.com.