SALTING THEIR TAILS. 385 



himself to be caiight, after finding the enemy is lying 

 in wait for him." * I suppose the " sagacity" was im- 

 mortalised by Forbes in one of his playful moods ; 

 because not only is the fact on which the inference 

 rests inaccurate, the Solen readily coming to his cap- 

 tor ; but the Solen can have only slender pretensions 

 to mental vigour of any kind. 



Indeed, we are incessantly at fault in our tendency 

 to anthropomorphise, a tendency which causes us to 

 interpret the actions of animals according to the analo- 

 gies of human nature. Wherever we see motion which 

 seems to issue from some internal impulse, and not 

 from an obvious external cause, we cannot help attri- 

 buting it to '' the will." No one seeing a bird snap at 

 a fly with its beak, could doubt that the movement was 

 voluntary ; but if the bird's head were cut off, and the 

 beak continued to snap, would not this throw a serious 

 doubt on the voluntary nature of the former action ? 

 Yet this is what occurs with the curious avicularium, 

 or " bird's-head process " of the Corkscrew Coralline : 

 an animal doubtless familiar to many readers, some of 

 whom have mistaken it for a Polype, it being indis- 

 tinguishable from a Polype by the naked eye (Plate 

 VII., fig. 4), although the microscope, revealing its in- 

 ternal structure, shows it to be a Polyzoon. The stem 

 is twisted into a corkscrew shape, sufficiently remark- 

 able to attract attention in rock-pools, or in tanks. On 

 examining it attentively, it is generally seen to be fur- 

 nished with a number of processes resembling vulture- 



* Manual of the MoUusca, p. 15. 



2b 



