BABBLING BEACHES 101 



that Christmas is past and March not yet over. Many 

 a year passes without such a storm as compels the 

 groaning ocean to ravage its reefs. Then the beaches, 

 during the first three months, are not particularly fertile, 

 nor are the shells to be found special or peculiar. In 

 April many specimens of the mollusc known as Tapes, 

 of which there are several species, are cast ashore, empty- 

 but fresh. In life the animal buries itself in the mud 

 at the edge of the sand, and some disturbance of natural 

 conditions, possibly due to the fresh water from flooded 

 rivers, causes seasonal mortality. The most conspicuous 

 of the species is that known as "literati," because of 

 the erratic scribblings decorating its valves. With 

 others of the genera, it is to be found cast away at other 

 times of the year, but the end of the wet season seems 

 exceptionally direful. 



April is confirmed, too, but transiently, by the pre- 

 sence of a frail mollusc (Hamincea cymbalum) which is 

 washed ashore attached to seaweed, soon to disappear 

 desiccated by the sun and ground to powder. The 

 shell is semi-transparent with a sandy tint, and in form 

 not unlike that of a common snail. As the weather 

 becomes cooler, a thin, delicate bivalve decorates high- 

 water mark. It is one of the tellinas semi-transparent, 

 lustrous, and fragile which occurs in muddy sand, 

 but why the species should be more susceptible to the 

 ills of life during a particular season is not apparent. 

 When the fates do conspire against its welfare dozens 

 of bright specimens may be picked up during a casual 

 stroll, the animal having disappeared. The epidemic 

 the beach thus announced with pink and glittering 

 shells coincides with low night tides, which possibly 

 leave the inefficiently protected animals exposed to the 

 attacks of uncustomary enemies which thrive only 

 when tht muddy banks are exposed. Tht cause of 



