234 OYSTERS, AND ALL. ABOUT THEM. 



the air, and letting them fall, secure them as a prey. The 

 story of the bald head of ^schylus being mistaken for 

 a stone by an eagle, who cracked the tortoise by its 

 fall, but killed the poet, is not, therefore, altogether a 

 fable. " In a cavern at Muswell Bay," says Barrow, " I 

 distinguished some thousands of birds, and found as many 

 thousands of living shell-fish scattered on the surface of a 

 heap of shells, that, for aught I know, might have filled 

 many thousand waggons." 



Another of the oyster's enemies is a bird, which delights 

 in the rocks, and reefs, and naked strands. When the sea 

 rises it retires before the ebb, and then follows the reflux, 

 groping in the sand for various marine animals, among 

 which are oysters, its special favourites. From this circum- 

 stance it is called the oyster-catcher, and fully is it entitled 

 to its name. 



So well adapted is its bill not only to raise the limpet 

 from the rock, but to force open the valves of the oyster, 

 as to lead Derham long since to remark : " The Author 

 of Nature seems to have framed it peculiarly for that use." 

 And it is not merely interesting, but instructive, to watch 

 a bird of this kind detaching the oyster from its rocky bed ; 

 digging up cockles with its powerful bill ; and separating 

 mussels from the scarps. If the creatures are small, the 

 oyster-catcher swallows them whole ; but if it finds one too 

 large to be disposed of at once, the bird digs away at its 

 valves till it opens them, and then, devouring the little 

 animal, leaves its shell on the shore. 



But there are other enemies of these creatures. Such 

 are the sea-worms, some of which are of great beauty, 

 which bore through the oyster-shell at all points. Here, 

 then, is a very remarkable process, which may naturally 

 give rise to the question " How can a soft-bodied sea- 



