28 ARE FOOD TO FISH. 



depend in great measure, wlien winter has destroyed their 

 summer food, on the more common species of Helices, espe- 

 cially on H. nemoralis. These they carry in their bills to a 

 convenient station and break very dexterously by reiterated 

 strokes against some stone ; and it is not uncommon to find 

 a great qviantity of fragments of shells together, as if brought 

 to one particular stone for this very purpose. It appears that 

 the thrush also feeds her callow young with Helices. The 

 bearded titmouse feeds on Succinea amphibia and other small 

 terrestrial Mollusca (Pupae), but, milike the thrush, it swal- 

 lows the shells entire, which are broken down by the action 

 of the stomach, the trituration being completed by attrition 

 against numerous sharp angular fragments of quartz instinc- 

 tively swallowed at the same time. * 



Fishes are stupid animals, and incapable, ajoparently, of 

 planning any stratagem by Avhich they might surj^rise the 

 unheeding conch. You might imagine, therefore, that our 

 favourites, " in their grotto works enclosed," were sufficiently 

 secure from their hostile attempts. It is not so. They are 

 the frequent victims, not indeed of the cunning, but of the 

 indiscriminating and almost insatiable appetite, of fishes ; and 

 from the stomach of a cod or flounder you may procure many 

 a shell, not otherwise so easily attainable. When indeed we 

 call to recollection the vast and incalculable number of mol- 

 luscous animals which crawl on the bottom, or swim in the 

 bosom of the ocean, and the voracious habits of the swarms 

 of fish which everywhere traverse it, we may reasonably con- 

 clude that their utility in this respect in the economy of na- 

 ture is very great, and beyond human ken. And not only do 

 the shell-fish nourish, but it has been presumed, or perhaps 

 proved, that they impart a peculiar flavour to at least some of 

 their devourers, which greatly enhanced their value in the 

 esteem of Roman epicures. Thus Martial sings, — 



" No praise, no price a gilthead e'er will take, 

 Unfed with oysters of the Lucrine lake : " + 



amazing bed of small mussels, of a species not observed in the subjacent sea. 

 I think them brought there by sea-fowl, to eat at leisure." — Pennant, Arctic 

 Zool. Introd. C. 



* Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 238, 9.— In the Hebrides the Thrush feeds on the 

 Turbo littoreus and Trochus conuloides, much thicker and stronger shells 

 than the Helix, but which it breaks in the same manner. — Edin. Journ. of 

 Nat. 4- Geogr. Sc. i. 66. The Rock Pigeon of these islands feeds chiefly on 

 Helix ericetorum and Bulimus acutus. — Lib. cit. ii. 325. 



f "Non omnis laudem prctiumque aurata meretur, 

 Sed cui solus erit concha Lucrina cibus," 

 Hence Pope in his " Satires :" 



" Let me extol a cat on oysters fed ; 

 I '11 liave a party at the Bedford-head." 



