314 CARNIVOROUS MOLLUSCA. 



given to it, they were never touched, even although care was 

 taken that the Vitrina should have nothing else for nearly a 

 fortnight ; but, on the very first night of its confinement, it 

 would kill and eat a small snail, and it preyed on its own 

 species greedily, the larger slaying the smaller, and then in- 

 dulging its cannibal appetite. Two of nearly equal size 

 being put together, the stronger or braver slew his neigh- 

 bour, which furnished a plentiful repast for two or three 

 succeeding nights, for it is during this season only that they 

 feed.* It would be well to ascertain whether our own 

 Vitrinae are not equally carnivorous and addicted to canni- 

 balism : they are at present believed to be herbivorous ; but 

 Mr. Jeffreys informs us that V. pellucida " has the same 

 carnivorous propensities as the smaller Limacidae and Testa- 

 celli ; and I once," he adds, " detected no less than seven 

 individuals busily engaged in feeding on a scarcely dead 

 earthworm, which was faintly writhing about, and endea- 

 vouring in vain to get rid of its assailants. " j- 



The Pteropod Mollusca are undoubtedly zoophagous; the 

 minute Crustacea and Medusas, or particles of dead animal 

 matter floating in the sea, furnishing their nutriment Some 

 species of this order abound amazingly in the Arctic Ocean, 

 where the marine vegetation seems too scanty for the re- 

 quisite supply of food ; and, moreover, they are found 

 floating far from the shore, and at the surface, where no 

 vegetables are. We have, however, no certain information 

 on this head. 



On the contrary, it is well ascertained that all the Cepha- 

 lopoda are carnivorous, and for voraciousness and ferocity 

 may justly claim precedence among mollusks. Such of them 

 as swim in the bosom of the ocean, as Loligo, feed upon fish 

 in general, and they will frequently tear large pieces from 

 those which have swallowed the baited hook, and deprive the 

 fisherman of his gain. I have had more than one specimen 

 of Loligo vulgaris brought me, which, adhering with a fatal 

 tenacity to the fish, had allowed itself to be drawn from the 

 water; and in the stomachs of others I have found not only 

 the undigested remains of this food, but the beaks of small 

 individuals of their own species. J The tribes, again (Octo- 



* Lowe in Zool. Journ. iv. 342. + Linn. Trans, xvi. 506. 



% The fact of their feeding on their own kind was known to iElian, who 

 thus speaks of the Polypus in the first chapter of his Miscellanies :— " They 

 have terrible stomachs, and nothing can save itself from being devoured by 

 them. They frequently attack one another, when the smaller one, being 

 caught and involved in the tresses of the more powerful, becomes a meal 

 for it." 



