ON ACEPHALA, 4.05 
be made near them, they will sink down into their holes. But 
this may proceed simply from the immediate shock upon the 
water, and on the cirri which terminate their tubes. 
We are ignorant as to how the solens reproduce, and how 
their germs, or eggs, are placed by the mother. Aristotle 
maintains that they reproduce in the sand, which is conceiv- 
able, if he means that the eggs are deposited, at a very small 
depth, in the sand itself. The distinction found in Pliny, 
and subsequently in Rondelet, and other writers of the same 
era, of male and female solens, does not rest upon any thing 
positive. 
The ancient authors, and Pliny among others, tell us, that 
the solens are essentially phosphoric. But this was, doubt- 
less, because they comprehended under this name, animals of 
the genera Pholas and Lithodoma, for Reaumur does not say 
that the true solens possess this property. 
The inhabitants of the coasts where the species of this 
genus are to be found, proceed in search of them, either for 
food, which, however, is only the case with the poorest sort of 
people, or to use them as baits for the catching of certain 
fish. It is when the sea is considerably withdrawn, especially 
after high tides, that they are able to procure them in great 
abundance, and with more facility. They recognize the 
place where any are to be found, by a transverse aperture, 
widened at each extremity in the form of a key-hole, above 
the hole which they inhabit. To draw them out, which is 
often rather difficult, the animal being sometimes sunk very 
deeply, they throw some pinches of salt into the hole. The 
salt produces such an irritating effect on the extremity of the 
tube of the animal, that it immediately ascends out of the 
hole to get rid of it; then it is seized, but still some address, 
and quickness, more especially, are necessary, without which 
the animal would re-enter as rapidly as it came forth, and 
fresh pinches of salt would no longer produce the same effect 
