230 INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. 



diminisli friction, and, by a sudden spring, the creature 

 actually advanced to a considerable distance. 



"This," said a fisherman, to whom we pointed out the 

 movements of the Limpet, "is their common method of 

 proceeding. The form of the leg which you observed, may 

 be altered at pleasure : it answers the purpose of a foot, or 

 hand, by the help of which they are able to sink into the mud, 

 rise from it again, and even spring, as you have just ob- 

 served, from the rocks to which they generally adhere so 

 closely, that it is impossible to remove them without con- 

 siderable force; unless, for it seems that their sense of 

 hearing is very exquisite, you come upon them unex- 

 pectedly.''^ 



We boast of our inventions in the arts and sciences, 

 forgetting that we are frequently anticipated by the feeblest 

 of created beings. The Torpedo defended himself from his 

 enemies by means of an electric shock, long before acade- 

 micians thought of making experiments in electricity. The 

 Limpet acted as if he understood the pressure of the atmo- 

 sphere, and attached himself to the rock by forming a 

 vacuum in his pyramidal shell, more than five thousand 

 years before the air-pump was invented. 



