8o THE DISPERSAL OF SHELLS. 



way home, with a big Anodortta attached to one of its 

 feet; it was slowly and painfully dragging the shell 

 along, and had already crossed two large fields. 



An account of the shooting of a heron with a large 

 fresh-water mussel upon one of its feet was once related 

 to Mr. Standen by an old gamekeeper at Claughton ; 

 the bird, flying near the ground, was endeavouring to 

 shake off the shell — " a big horse-mussel " — which 

 dangled from its foot, and prevented it from stretching 

 out the leg in the usual manner. Some years ago a 

 blue-winged teal {Querquedula discors), with a shell of 

 Unio coviplanatics clinging to one of its toes, was shot 

 on the wing, by Mr. H. L. Newcomb, near the Artichoke 

 River, at West Newbury, Massachusetts. The foot 

 and shell were given to Mr. Gray, of Danversport, 

 whose letter to Mr. Darwin describing the case was 

 published in Nattire, in 1878, together with a sketch of 

 the specimens and a note by Darwin. The Unio, it is 

 said, had abraded the skin of the toe, and left quite an 

 impression.' In 1884, Mr. J. W. Fewkes recorded the 

 shooting of a duck, on the wing, near the Sebec River, 

 Maine, with a "common clam " holding on to one of 

 its feet by the middle toe. The leg (with the clam 

 attached) was cut off, and after a day or more placed 

 in a basin of water, when the mollusc opened its shell 

 and released the toe. The shell had probably been 



' C. Darwin (and A. H. Gray), " Transplantation of Shells," 

 Nature, xviii. (1878), 120-1 ; a statement by Professor R. E. 

 Call in the Ainerica>i Naturalist, xii. (1878), 473, seems also to 

 have reference to this case. 



