14 MANUAL OF THE MOLLUSCA. 



the other unsophisticated classes of society ; and so are scallops 

 and the Jiallotis, where they can be obtained. Two kinds of 

 whelk are brought to the London market in great quantities ; and 

 the arms of the cuttle-fish are eaten by the Neapolitans, and also 

 by the East Indians and Malays. In seasons of scarcity, vast 

 quantities of shell -fish are consumed by the poor inhabitants of 

 the Scotch and Irish coasts.* StiU more are regularly collected 

 for bait ; the calamary is much used in the cod-fishery, off New- 

 foundland, and the Hmpet and whelk on our own coasts. 



Many wild animals feed on sheU-fish ; the rat and the racoon 

 seek for them on the sea-shore when pressed by hunger; the 

 South- American otter, and Ihe crab-eating opossum constantly 

 resort to salt-marshes, and the sea, and prey on the mollusca ; 

 the gTeat whale lives habitually on the small floating pteropods ; 

 sea-fowl search for the litoral species at every ebbing tide; 

 whilst, in their own element, the mai'ine kinds are perpetually 

 devoured by fishes. The haddock is a " great conchologist ;" 

 and some good northern sea-sheUs have been rescued, unbroken, 

 from the stomach of the cod ; whilst even the strong valves of 

 the cyprina are not proof against the teeth of the cat-fish 

 (anarhicas) . 



They even fall a prey to animals much their inferiors in saga- 

 city ; the star-fish swallows the small bivalve entire, and dissolves 

 the animal out of its shell; and the bubble-sheU (pliylme)<, 

 itself predacious, is eaten both by stai'-fish and sea-anemone 

 (actinia) . 



The land-snails afford food to many birds, especially to the 

 thrush tribe ; and to some insects, for the luminous larva of the 

 glow-worm lives on them, and some of the large predacious 

 beetles fe. g. carabus violaceus and goerius ole?isJ, occasionally 

 kiU slugs. 



The greatest enemies of the mollusca, however, are those of 

 their own nation ; scarcely one-half the shelly tribes graze peace- 



* See Hugh Miller's " Scenes and Legpuds of the North of Scotland." 



