614 HISTOET AND METHODS OF THE FISHEBIES. 



maintain an upright position, when the work becomes much easier and the burrow rapidly 

 increases in depth." 



A very amusing account of the efforts of a naturalist to procure one of the English species 

 is to be read in Lankester's " Uses of Animals," a part of which I may be permitted to quote : 



"After many vain efforts to secure one of these creatures alive, I mentioned my failures to the 

 late Prof. Edward Forbes. ' Oh,' he said, with a waggish smile, ' there is nothing easier. All you 

 have to do is to put a little salt on their holes and they will come out.' I remembered, you know, 

 the story of putting salt on birds' tails, and although I resolved secretly to try my friend's plan, 

 it was so simple, I had not the courage to tell him that I would. I had, however, no sooner got 

 to the sea-side than I quietly stole to the pantry and pocketed some salt, and then went alone at 

 low tide to the sandy shore. As soon as I espied a hole I looked round, for I almost fancied I 

 heard my friend chuckle over my shoulder ; however, nobody was there, and down went a pinch 

 of salt over the hole. What I now beheld almost staggered me. Was it the ghost of some razor- 

 fish whose head I had chopped off in digging that now rose before me to arraign me for my 

 malice, or was it a real live razor-fi-sh, that now raised its long shell at least half out of the sand ? 

 I grasped it, fully expecting it would vanish, but I found I had won my prize. It was a real, solid, 

 specimen of the species Solen maximus that I had in my hand. 



" I soon had a number of others which were all carried home in triumph. Of course there 

 were more than were required for science, and at the suggestion of a Scotch friend the animals 

 not wanted were made into soup. When the soup was brought to table, our Scotch friend vowed 

 it particularly fine, and ate a basin with at least twenty razor-fish in it. One tablespoonful satis 

 fled the ladies, whilst myself and an English friend declared against our consciences I do verily 

 believe that we had never eaten anything more excellent. I counted the number of the creatures 

 I was able to swallow; it amounted to exactly three. After a tumbler of whisky and water, taken, 

 of course, medicinally, arrangements were made fora dredge in the morning. The Scotchman 

 was up at five, but I and my English friend could not make our appearance. Nightmare and 

 other symptoms of indigestion had fairly upset us and unfitted us for anything so ticklish as a 

 dredging excursion. Now, I do not wish to say anything against razor-fish as an article of diet, 

 but from what I have told you, they would seem to possess an amount of resistance to the ordi- 

 nary digestive activity of the stomach that would render it highly desirable to insure before taking 

 them such a digestion as a Highlander from his mountain wilds is known to possess. 



"Notwithstanding this dictum, it is certain that the ancients, who were not backward in dis- 

 covering what was fit to eat, were fond of solens. 'Athseneus directs them to be boiled or fried, 

 or, what is still better, to roast them on live coals till they gape.' The same author * * 

 quotes a commendation of Sophrou, who not only praises them as great delicacies, but says they 

 are particularly grateful to widows." 



Knowing that a couple of centuries ago they were commonly eaten in Italy, in France, in Eng- 

 land, and especially during Lent in Ireland, the early visitors to America observed at once that 

 they occurred here also, adding another to the long list of marine delicacies which the New World 

 boasted. It is evidently the Solen (or modern Ensatella) that Josselyn means in the following: 



" An achariston for pin and web. Sheath-fish, which are there very plentiful ; a delicate 

 fish as good a prawn ; covered with a thin shell, like the sheath of a knife, and of the color of a 

 mussel. Which shell, calcin'd and pulveriz'd, is excellent to take off a pin and web, or any kind 

 of filrne growing over the eye." 



But Americans never took kindly to eating the razors, or even putting them into their materia 

 medica. Under the name of " long clam," " knife-handle," and " razor clam," they are occasionally 



