54 RAMBLES OF 



of the object the great Author of nature had in view, 

 in thus profusely beautifying creatures occupying so 

 low a place in the scale of creation. 



European naturalists have hitherto fallen into the 

 strangest absurdities concerning the motion of the 

 bivalved shells, which five minutes' observation of 

 nature would have served them to correct. Thus, 

 they describe the upper part of the shell as the 

 loiver, and the hind part as the front, and speak of 

 them as moving along on their rounded convex sur- 

 face, like a boat on its keel, instead of advancing 

 with the edges or open part of the shell towards the 

 earth. All these mistakes have been corrected, and 

 the true mode of progression indicated from actual 

 observation, by our fellow-citizen, Isaac Lea, whose 

 recently published communications to the American 

 Philosophical Society reflect the highest credit upon 

 their author, who is a naturalist in the best sense 

 of the term. 



As I wandered slowly along the borders of the 

 run, towards a little wood, my attention was caught 

 by a considerable collection of shells lying near an 

 old stump. Many of these appeared to have been 

 recently emptied of their contents, and others seemed 

 to have long remained exposed to the weather. On 

 most of them, at the thinnest part of the edge, a 

 peculiar kind of fracture was obvious, and this 

 seemed to be the work of an animal. A closer 

 examination of the locality showed the footsteps of 

 a quadruped, which I readily believed to be the 

 muskrat, more especially as, upon examining the 



