80 SAXICAVIDtE. 



relation of the circumstances connected with his dis- 

 covery is amusing. He says, " To some of the fishermen 

 of our coast it is well known by the name of the ' bacca- 

 box/ from a fancied resemblance to one of their most 

 useful household gods. All the specimens [which he ob- 

 tained] were rescued from destruction in a singular 

 manner. The first was destined for a tobacco-box ; the 

 second had the honour of holding the grease belonging 

 to the boat establishment ; and the third — ' Tell it not 

 in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon ^ — was 

 inspected alive for several days by the officers and mem- 

 bers of a modern philosophical Society (all of them 

 unconscious of its value), and after amusing them by 

 squirting water to the ceiling, was at last seen by a 

 learned friend, purchased for a trifle, and generously 

 placed in our cabinet.^^ The long-line fishermen, every 

 now and then, capture living specimens, by means of 

 their hooks becoming fixed in the tough leathery sheaths 

 of these enormous Saxicavce; and they thus increase 

 not a little their precarious earnings. The shell is much 

 sought after by collectors, and is never likely to be so 

 plentiful in their repositories as it evidently is in that 

 of Nature — unless some adventurous zoologist, like 

 Milne-Edwards or the unfortunate Barrett, should be 

 tempted and able to explore, with the aid of a diving 

 helmet or dress, the comparatively deep sea-bottom in- 

 habited by these mollusks. Dr. Mighels says that the 

 specimens which he obtained were taken from the sto- 

 machs of cod fishes. S. 'Norvegica is gregarious, and 

 lives in company with Mytilus modiolus, whose byssal 

 fibres may be occasionally seen adhering to the shell of 

 the present species. Sessile Foraminifera (Trmicatulina 

 lobatula) may also be detected on the outside of the 

 tubular sheath, even at its base, showing that this part 



