THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



73 



clothes. This is not due to their being really of this color, 

 but to a cement formed by the moist chips from the rocks, 

 which cover the bodies of this peculiar class of men, and 

 which fly off as they cleave the rocks with powerful blows 



27. Dactyloicl Pholades in their holes : Pholas dactylus. 



of the pickaxe, in order to find in their depths the mol- 

 luscs, which they sell to the fishermen. 



When, after overcoming the obstacles presented by a 

 rocky and slippery ground, we reach the neighborhood of 

 the laborious workman, and, having induced him to pause 

 from his work, so that our clothes may not be soiled by the 

 chips radiating from his hatchet, we examine the pholads 

 lying here and there among the broken stones, we return 

 quite convinced that there exist shell-fish which gnaw stone, 

 a fact which many people doubted not long ago. But 



