AUGUST, 1882. 219 



Jeffreys. The elegantly-fringed mantle becomes inflated 

 like the delicate texture of a sea-anemone, and they 

 mostly remain with their shell perched on the top, their 

 foot firmly pressed upon the dish, and their inflated 

 mantle spreading around them. One we placed on the 

 edge of the dish actually crept out, apparently in search 

 of water, and too stupid to find it, although within an 

 inch or two. Another crept down until its head alone 

 was in the water, where it remained for a day or two, 

 seemingly quite satisfied for a time with its breathing 

 tube in the air. This fringed-tube emerges from the hole 

 in the apex of the shell, but does not communicate with 

 the foot, and so presents no difficulty to the mollusc in 

 the way of preventing the sucker action of the foot ; for 

 these creatures stick as firmly as a common limpet 

 (Patella). Although commonest on our coast in ten 

 fathoms, they exist at low water mark in some districts, 

 which seems.quite in keeping with their power of living 

 comfortably half out of the water. 



Two feet from our study window the sweet peas are 

 growing luxuriantly on the hither side of a rustic, wattled 

 fence, and on this fence all the day long the birds come 

 and go. Are they, too, lovers of the beautiful flowers, 

 or do they fancy the papilionaceous plants are carrying 

 butterflies ? Is it an aesthetic development, as in the 

 case of the Bower bird, or do very earthly considerations 

 mix themselves up with the various feathered visitors 

 that come to nod, and hop, and go again from the many- 

 coloured flowers ? Do not various flies and bees linger 

 about them, and form a point of attraction to these 

 shrewd entomologists, who all know well the customary 

 habitats of moth and fly ! Here is a little wren " sewing " 

 its way along the fence, for it dodges along first on one 



