150 Natural History of Molluscous Animals: — 



particularly on oysters. We are told that it will watch the 

 opening of the shells, dexterously put in its paw, and tear out 

 the contents. Not, however, without danger, for sometimes, 

 we are assured, by a sudden closure, the oyster will catch the 

 thief, and detain him until he is drowned by the return of the 

 tide.* The story, I regret to say, appears somewhat apocry- 

 phal, for, 



— - " nee lex est justior uUa, 



Quam necis artifices arte perire sua," f 



These are amusing facts ; the following, to the epicure at 

 least, may be equally interesting. In some parts of England 

 it is a prevalent and probably a correct opinion, that the 

 shelled-snails contribute much to the fattening of their sheep. 

 On the hill above Whitsand Bay in Cornwall, and in the 

 south of Devonshire, the Bulimus acutus Drap. (Jig, 40. a) 

 and the Helix virgata ( b ), 

 which are found there in vast 

 profusion, are considered to have ^gj:^^^ 

 this good effect ; and it is indeed '"^^-^ -^ 

 impossible that the sheep can 

 browse on the short grass of the places just mentioned, with- 

 out devouring a prodigious quantity of them, especially in 

 the night, or after rain, when the Bulimi and Helices ascend the 

 stunted blades.f " The sweetest mutton," says Borlase, " is 

 reckoned to be that of the smallest sheep, which feed on the 

 commons where the sands are scarce covered with the green 

 sod, and the grass exceedingly short; such are the towens or 

 sand hillocks in Piran Sand, Gwythien, Philac, and Senan- 

 green, near the Land's End, and elsewhere in like situations. 

 From these sands come forth snails of the turbinated kind, 

 but of different species, and all sizes from the adult to the 

 smallest just from the egg ; these spread themselves over the 

 plains early in the morning, and, whilst they are in ques,t of 



* The following note is taken from BelPs Weekly Messenger, ioT Jan. 7. 

 1821. A tradesman of Plymouth, having lately placed some oysters in a 

 cupboard, was surprised at finding, in the morning, a mouse caught by the 

 tail, by the sudden collapsing of the shell. About forty years since at Ash- 

 burton, at the house of Mrs. Allridge, known by the name of the New 

 Inn, a dish of Wembury oysters was laid in a cellar. A large oyster soon 

 expanded its shell, and at the instant two mice pounced upon the " living 

 luxury," and were at once crushed between the valves The oyster, with 

 the two mice dangHng from its shell, was for a long time exhibited as 

 a curiosity. Carew,in his History of Cornwall, tells of an oyster that closed 

 on three mice. An apposite instance is also epigrammatically recorded in 

 the Greek Anthology. 



f [«* There is no juster law, than that the contrivers of death should 

 perish in their own devices."] 



t Mont. Test. Brit. p. 347. and 417. 



