RELATIVES OF THE OYSTER. 205 



shores of the Channel Islands among the rest. This is 

 also the reason why that sea-weed, which is so valuable 

 in the Channel Islands, comes ashore in considerable 

 quantities after those violent disturbances of the waters 

 which have torn it from its natural situation as a living 

 vegetable, and transferred it to those dead products which 

 the sea invariably casts on the strand as of no further 

 use. (/) 



But our information relative to " Oyster-heaps " is not 

 yet exhausted ; many more could be specified, but I will 

 not trespass upon the reader's patience longer than to 

 notice two or three authentic records thereof. 



At Wigwam Cove, Tierra del Fuego, piles of old 

 shells, cockles, and oysters, often amounting to some tons 

 in weight, were noticed by Dr. Darwin, which had at 

 different periods formed the chief food of the inhabi- 

 tants, (k) 



These remind us of the so-called kjokkenmoddings 

 (kitchen heaps) of Denmark, or shell-mounds, to which 

 the attention of archaeologists has been recently attracted 

 in Northern Europe, and which consist of thousands of 

 shells of the oyster, cockle, and other edible mollusks, 

 with implements of stone, such as flint knives, hatchets, 

 &c., and implements of bone, wood, and horn, with 

 fragments of coarse pottery mixed with charcoal and 

 cinders. (/) 



I have already informed the reader that for the most 

 part the offspring of the oyster remains near the mother, 

 and I repeat it, in order to impress upon his mind and 



(/) Mudie. 



(k) Darwin's "Voyage of Adventure and Beagle," vol. 3, p. 234. 

 (/) Sir Charles Lyell's " Antiquity of Man." 



