their Food and Digestive Organs* 409 



You could never have anticipated that the Bivalved Mol- 

 liisca (Conchifera) would be found among the prey of these 

 carnivorous tribes, than which there are apparently no animals 

 less fitted to gain access to their strong-holds, so that even 

 Blainville has expressed himself incredulous on the point. 

 But the fact is certain, and has been known since the time of 

 Aristotle {Hist, Anim., lib. iv. cap. iv. sect. 148-9.); nor, in- 

 deed, is it hastily to be believed that such an improbable state- 

 ment would have been made by the Stagyrite, had it not rested 

 on personal observation. The Purpuras prove extensively 

 destructive to muscles and other littoral bivalves : the -Succina 

 feed upon those which burrow in sand in somewhat deeper 

 water ; and it is very probable, considering the similarity of 

 their organisation, that all the whelks and rock shells, and per- 

 haps all the pectinibranchial zoophagous gasteropodes, have 

 the same taste, and an equal capacity of gratifying it. How, 

 you ask, and by what means ? Do they glide insidiously, and 

 pop a stone between the valves, to prevent their closure ? or 

 do they venture slily to insinuate their foot, and seize upon 

 the unwary inmate ? The first they cannot do, and the latter 

 I should deem a hazardous attempt ; but nevertheless it is 

 affirmed that the J5uccinum undatum really runs the hazard 

 in its attacks upon the clam (Pecten opercularis), to which it 

 bears a great enmity.* This is not, however, their usual 

 method, which is — what you might never guess — by boring 

 a hole in one valve through which they reach their miserable 

 victim. On examining a number of valves of dead shells, 

 of Mactrae and Anatinae especially, you will perceive in many, 

 and generally near the beaks, a small circular hole drilled 

 with a neatness that the gimlet of the artisan could not more 

 than emulate ; and these holes are the workmanship of the 



- * " Is commonly taken in dredging by fishermen, who either use the 

 animal for bait, or destroy it, from a supposition that it is very destructive 

 to the large scollop, Pecten maximus, by insinuating its tail (as it is 

 termed) into the shell, and destroying the inhabitant : this, we have been 

 assured, they will do even in a pail of sea water." (Mont. Test. Brit., 

 p. 238.) The mode in which they anciently fished for the Purpuras proves 

 the danger. " Now these purples are taken with small nets, and thinne 

 wrought, cast into the deep ; within which, for a bait to bite at, there must 

 be certain winckles and cockles, that will shut and open, and be ready to 

 snap, such as we see those limpens be, called mituli. Halfe dead they 

 should be first, that, being new put into the sea again, and desirous to 

 revive and live, they might gape for water : and then the purples make at 

 them with their pointed tongues, which they thrust out to annoy them ; 

 but the other, feeling themselves pricked therewith, presently shut their 

 shels together, and bite hard. Thus the purples, for their greedinesse, are 

 caught and taken up, hanging by their tongues." (Holland's Plin.j i. 259.) 



