14 MANUAL OF THE MOLLUSC A. 



tlie otlier unsophisticated classes of society ; and so are scallops 

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

 whelk are brought to the London market in gi-eat quantities ; and 

 the anus 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.* Still more are regularly collected 

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

 foundland, and the limpet 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 the crab-eating opossum constantly 

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

 the great whale lives habitually on the small floating pteropods ; 

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

 whilst, in their own element, the marine kinds are pei*petually 

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

 and some good northern sea-shells 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 

 (anar Ideas). 



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

 city ; the star-fish swallows the small bivalve entu'e, and dissolves 

 the animal out of its shell; and the bubble-shell (phyline), 

 itself predacious, is eaten both by star-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 (e. g. caTabus violaceus and goerius olem)^ occasionally 

 kill 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 Legends of the North of Scotland." 



