294 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



hand in excavating and building, and various 

 other manipulations, so that in giving them this 

 instrument and endowing it with such variety of 

 functions in the various tribes, their Creator gave 

 them every thing they wanted. 



Perhaps the followers of Lamarck may say 

 that, in the present instance, the animal constructs 

 its own float itself, at the impulse of its own 

 wants. But uninstructed by its Creator, how could 

 it learn that vesicles full of air would serve to float 

 its little boat, and if not already organized to an- 

 swer the impulse of an exciting cause, in vain 

 would the will of the animal, if so instructed, en- 

 deavour to produce and inflate the vesicles, or, 

 when it willed to sink, to empty them of air. 



The shell-fish of the aquatic tribe best known 

 in this country is the periwinkle, vulgarly called 

 the pin-patch, 1 which, next to the oyster and the 

 cockle, seems most in request as a relishing 

 article of food. These animals, as I observed, 

 not very long since at Cromer, in Norfolk, ap- 

 pear to make the bladder-kelp, 2 which, at low 

 water, may be seen there in large patches, a 

 kind of submarine pasture, for I found them in 

 abundance upon it at low water. As the 

 Creator willed that the waters, whether salt or 

 fresh, should have their peculiar inhabitants, it 

 was requisite that each should have its appro- 



1 Turbo litoreus. " Fucus vesiculosus. 



