MOLLUSCA ARE FOOD TO QUADRUPEDS. 2o 



oyster, and fearful of inserting their paws between the open 

 valves, lest the oyster should close and crush them, they first 

 place a tolerably large stone within the shell, and then drag 

 out their victim with safety. * The latter are no less inge- 

 nious. Dampier saw several of them take up oysters from 

 the beach, lay them on a stone, and beat them with another 

 till they demolished the shells. Wafer observed the monkeys 

 in the island of Gorgonia to proceed in a similar manner ; f 

 and those of the Cape of Good Hope, if we are to credit La 

 Loubere, perpetually amuse themselves by transporting shells 

 from the shore to the tops of the mountains, £ with the inten- 

 tion undoubtedly of devouring them at leisure. Even the 

 fox, when pressed by hunger, will deign to eat mussels and 

 other bivalves; and the racoon, whose fur is esteemed by 

 hatters next in value to that of the beaver, when near the 

 shore lives much on them, more particularly on oysters. We 

 are told that it will watch the opening of the shells, dexter- 

 ously put in its paw, and tear out the contents ; but when it 

 is added that the oyster, by a sudden closure of its shell, 

 occasionally catches the thief and detains him until he is 

 drowned by the return of the tide, the story assumes a very 

 apocryphal character. § The American musk-rat, and an 

 animal allied to it in New South Wales, feed on the large 

 mussels so abundant in the rivers and lagoons of those coun- 

 tries ; the animals dive for the shells and drag them to the 

 land, where they break them and devour the inmates at lei- 

 sure. || Our own brown rat, having settled in many islets 

 at a great distance from the large islands of the outer Hebrides, 

 finds means of existence there in the shell-fish and Crustacea 

 of the shore ; ^[ and according to Mr. Jesse, the same rat, 



* " To this instance of instinct, however," says Mr. Swainson, " we must 

 withhold our belief: it is not only too rational, hut there is nothing yet 

 known, to make us believe that this quadruped feeds, in a state of nature, 

 upon animal food." — On the Hah. and Inst, of Anim. in Lard. Cyclop. 

 p. 21. 



t Bin^ley's Animal Biography. 



X Buffon Nat. Hist. Eng. Trans, i. 221. 



§ " 'The Inverness Courier' states that immense mussels, some of which 

 are almost as large as a man's shoe, are found at Ardinisgain, on Loch Car- 

 roll. A few days since, one of these mussels was left uncovered by a spring 

 ebb tide, and was induced by the rays of the sun to open itself. While thus 

 open, it was observed by a prowling fox, which thrust its tongue into the 

 shell in the hope of securing the fish ; but the mussel instantly closed on 

 the tongue of the fox, which was retained a prisoner until drowned by the 

 rising tide." — Berwick Advertiser, Jan. 15, 1848. We hope that the fact is 

 not as false as the grammar. 



|| Cunningham's N. S. Wales, i. 311. 



"IT Edin. Journ. Nat. & Geogr. Sc. ii. 1G3. 



