The Old Weevils 



from the surrounding sea-bed and sunk to 

 the bottom of the oozes, now turned into 

 marl, there are stupendous deposits of 

 shells, of every shape and size. It is a 

 molluscs' burying-ground, with hills for 

 tumuli. I dig up Oysters eighteen inches 

 long and weighing five or six pounds apiece. 

 One could scoop up from this enormous heap 

 Scallops, Coni, ^ 'Cytheres, ^ Mactrae, ^ 

 Murices,^ Turritellae,^ Mitras ^ and others 

 too numerous, too innumerable, to mention. 

 You stand stupefied before the intense vital- 

 ity of the days of old, which was able to 

 supply us with such a mass of relics in a mere 

 hole in the ground. 



This necropolis of shells tell us also that 

 time, that patient renewer of the harmony 

 of things, has mown down not only the in- 

 dividual, a precarious being, but also the 

 species. Nowadays the neighbouring sea, 



iQr Cone-shells. — 'Translator's Note. 



2 Bivalved Ostracods. — Translator's Note. 



^A genus of molluscs including the Surf Clams and re- 

 lated species. — Translator's Note. 



■*Gastropods v/ith a rough, spinose shell. — Translator's 

 Note. 



^Gastropods with an elongated, turreted shell. — Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



^Or Mitre-shells. Gastropods with a fusiform shell 

 suggesting a bishop's mitre. — Translator's Note. 

 II 



