48 POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



may be near. When the tide is quite out, down he sinks 

 into his briny reservoir. Who has not seen the picture of 

 the stupid-looking boy going warily out with a box of salt, 

 having been gravely informed by some village wag that if he 

 would only just drop a pinch of salt on the birds^ tails, he 

 would be sure to catch them ? We are all familiar enough 

 with this venerable joke, but not so with its successful ap- 

 plication in another case. This time it is the fisherman, 

 instead of the village boy, who carries the box. He cau- 

 tiously slips a little salt into the hole, which irritates the 

 ends of the siphons, and makes the Solen come quickly out 

 to see what is the matter, and to clear itself of the painful 

 intrusion. The fisher, on the alert, must quickly seize his 

 prey, or else it will dart back again into its retreat, whence 

 no amount of salting or coaxing will bring it out again. 

 When a Solen is taken out of its hole, and laid on the sand, 

 it will, like the PJwlas, try at once to pierce a hole with 

 its foot, so well adapted to the purpose, and very soon suc- 

 ceeding, buries itself again. The Solen seldom voluntarily 

 changes his locahty ; but when he wishes to do so, he has a 

 clever knack of rising from his hole, and swimming by leaps 

 from place to place, till he finds the ground soft enough to 

 burrow in. By suddenly contracting liis shell and ejecting 



