NEST-BUILDERS. 165 



builder ; and I must not injure the interest of the following 

 account of it by any curtailment. With a party of friends 

 the Rev. David Landsborough dredged Lamlash Bay, on the 

 4th of June, 1846, and he says : — " The most interesting, 

 though not the rarest thing we got, was Lima hyans of con- 

 tinental writers, Lima tenera of Turton. I had before this 

 some specimens of this pretty bivalve, and I had admired 

 the beauty and elegance of the shell, but hitherto I had 

 been unacquainted \vith the life and manners of its inhabit- 

 ant. Mr. and Miss Alder had got it in the same kind of 

 coral at Rothesay, so that when Miss Alder got a cluster 

 of the coral cohering in a mass, she said, " O, here is the 

 Lima's nest ! " and breaking it up, the Lima was found snug 

 in the middle of it. The coral nest is curiously constructed, 

 and remarkably well fitted to be a safe residence for this 

 beautiful animal. The fragile shell does not nearly cover 

 the mollusk — the most delicate part of it, a beautiful orange 

 fringe-work, being altogether outside of the shell. Had it 

 no extra protection the half-exposed animal would be a 

 tempting mouthful — quite a bonne-bouche to some prowling 

 haddock or whiting ; but He who tempers the wind to the 

 shorn lamb, teaches this little creature, which he has so 

 elegantly formed, curious arts of self-preservation. It is 

 not contented wuth hiding itself among the loose coral, for 

 the first rude wave might lay it naked and bare. It 

 becomes a marine-mason, and builds a house or nest. It 

 chooses to dwell in a coral grotto. But in constructing this 

 grotto it shows that it is not only a mason but a rope-spinner, 

 and a tapestry -weaver, and a plasterer. Were it merely a 

 mason it would be no easy matter to cause the polymorphous 

 coral to cohere. Cordage, then, is necessary to bind to- 

 gether the angular fragments of the coral, and this cordage 

 it spins ; but it spins it as one of the secrets of the deep. 

 Somehow or another, though it has no hand, it contrives to 

 intertwine this yarn wdiich it has formed among the numerous 

 bits of coral so as firmly to bind a handful of it together. 

 Externally, this habitation is rough, and therefore better 

 fitted to elude or to ward off enemies ; but though ro\igh 

 externally, within all is smooth and lubricous, for the fine 

 yarn is w^oven into a lining of tapestry, and the interstices 

 are filled up with fine slime, so that it is smooth as plaster- 

 work, not uidike the patent Intonaco of my excellent, in- 

 genious friend, Mrs. Marshall. Not being intended, however, 

 like her valuable composition, to keep out damp or to bid 

 defiance to fire, while the intertwining cordage keeps tlie coral 

 walls together, the fine tapestry mixed with smooth and 



