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the animal has taken too great a quantity of water, it 

 is seen to spurt it out of its hole with some violence. 

 Upon this seemingly thin diet, it quickly grows larger, 

 and soon finds itself under a necessity of enlarging its 

 habitation and its shell. The motion of the pholas is 

 slow beyond conception ; its progress keeps pace with 

 the growth of its body ; and in proportion as itgrows 

 larger, it makes its way farther into the rock. When 

 it has got a certain way in, it then turns from a cer- 

 tain direction, and hollows downward; till at last 

 when its habitation is completed, the whole apart, 

 mcnt resembles the bowl of a tobacco-pipe: the 

 hole is the shank, being that by -which the animal 

 entered. 



Thus immured, the pholas lives in darkness, indo- 

 lence, and plenty : it never removes from, the narrow 

 mansion into which it has penetrated ; and seems 

 perfectly content with being enclosed in its* own 

 sepulchre. The influx of the sea-water, that enters 

 by its little gallery, satisfies all its wants ; and with- 

 out any other food, it is found to grow from seven 

 to eight inches long, and thiek in proportion. 



Yet the pholas thus shut up is not so solitary an 

 animal as it would at first appear ; for though it is 

 immured in its hole without egress ; though it is im- 

 possible for the animal, grown to a great size, to get 

 out by the way it made in, yet many of this kind meet 

 in the heart of the rock, and like miners in a siege, 

 who sometimes cross each others galleries, they fre- 

 quently break in upon each others retreats : whether 

 their thus meeting be the x work of accident or of 

 choice, few can take upon them to determine ; cer- 

 tain it is they are most commonly found in numbers 

 in the same rock; and sometimes above twenty are 

 discovered within a few inches of each other. 



As to the nest, this animal is found in greatest num- 

 ber at Ancona in Italy; it is found along the shores- 

 of .Normandy andPoitou, in France ; it is found also* 

 upon same of the coasts* of Scotland, aud in ge 



