AN ANTHOLOGY OF ANIMAL NOTABLES : 



THEIK POLICIES, ENDOWMENTS, 



PECULIAEITIES, CONQUESTS OVEE 



MATTEE, ETC. 



THE " TRIUMPH OF LIFE." 



EEFEEBING to the interesting article on " Destructive 

 Life " in the Spectator of April 22, I beg to mention an 

 illustration which exists in this neighbourhood. The 

 great blocks of limestone on the Plymouth breakwater are 

 often honeycombed and destroyed by what might seem a 

 very feeble agent. A little bivalve makes holes in the 

 stone, it is supposed by secreting a strongly acid fluid. 

 These holes increase in size with the growth of the 

 creature, and so gradually destroy the blocks, which have 

 to be renewed at considerable expense. When the British 

 Association met here in 1877 I was able to submit some 

 living specimens of these mischievous little workers. 



BENWELL BIRD. 



April 29, 1905. 



NOTE. The animal was the Piddock or Pholas. 

 It is dressed in a pair of white shells, so brittle and 

 delicate that it burrows into the solid rock as a means of 

 self-preservation, an eremite whose only contact with the 

 bustling world are the siphon tubes which it projects 

 beyond the entrance. The accomplishment of this fragile 

 little bivalve in boring into limestone or sandstone is a 

 fine parable of the will to live and conquer. The way it 



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