I often come across what I suspect to be slug eggs when digging or planting or just moving things from one spot to another. Today is the first time that I’ve found eggs I could identify without doubt as the nascent slugs were visible curled in their translucent beds, these tiny eggs of a transparent beauty to rival the wildflowers of early spring.
Slugs inhabit a no-man’s land of disquieting sliminess, small and harmless but unloved. Why is it, I wonder, that snails are beloved, cute, pictured on greeting cards and in children’s books, while slugs are so reviled? When I had a bed of strawberries I reviled them both equally, despoilers of my food; they would nibble the first bit of the berry that turned red, then eat it from the inside. I’d smash them and slice them and drown them willy-nilly, a fierce if futile war between farmer (such as I was) and pest. But now I have no competition with the slugs, so I mostly leave them alone and I’m able to simply appreciate the beauty of these tiny jewels enclosing tiny bits of life.
