374. 



HISTORY OF FISHES. 



Some kinds of this animal are as good eating 

 as the lobster ; and its eggs, which are of a deep 

 red, are considered as a very great delicacy. 

 But of others the taste is but indifferent ; and in 

 all places, except the Mediterranean, they are 

 little sought for, except as objects of curiosity. 



Very different in motion, though not much 

 different in shape, from these, are the Acorn 

 Shell- Fish, the Thumb-footed Shell- Fish, and 

 the imaginary Barnacle. These are fixed to 

 one spot, and appear to vegetate from a stalk. 

 Indeed, to an inattentive spectator, each actu- 

 ally seems to be a kind of fungus that grows 

 in the deep, destitute of animal life, as well 

 as motion. But the inquirer will soon change 

 his opinion, when he comes to observe this 

 mushroom-like figure more minutely. He 

 will then see that the animal residing within 

 the shell has not only life, but some degree of 

 voraciousness ; that it has a cover, by which 

 it opens and shuts its shell at pleasure ; that 

 it has twelve long crooked arms, furnished 

 with hair, which it thrusts forth for its prey ; 

 and eight smaller, which are generally kept 

 in the shell. They are seen adhering to every 

 substance that is to be met with in the ocean ; 

 rocks, roots of trees, ships' bottoms, whales, 

 lobsters, and even crabs, like bunches of 

 grapes clung to each other. It is amusing 

 enough to behold their operations. 1 They for 

 some time remain motionless within their 

 shell ; but when the sea is calm, they are seen 

 opening the lid, and peeping about them. 

 They then thrust out their long neck, look 

 round them for some time, and then abruptly 

 retreat back into their box, shut their lid, and 

 lurk in darkness and security. Some people eat 

 them ; but they are in no great repute at the 

 tables of the luxurious, where their deformed 

 figure would be no objection to their being 

 introduced. 



Of all animals of the shelly tribe, the 

 Pholades are the most wonderful. From their 

 great powers of penetration, compared with 

 their apparent imbecility, they justly excite 

 the astonishment of the curious observer. 

 These animals are found in different places; 

 sometimes clothed in their proper shell, at the 

 bottom of the water ; sometimes concealed in 

 lumps of marly earth ; and sometimes lodged, 

 shell and all, in the body of the hardest marble. 

 In their proper shell they assume different fig- 

 ures ; but, in general, they somewhat resem- 

 ble a mussel, except that their shell is found 

 actually composed of five or more pieces, the 

 smaller valves serving to close up the open- 

 ings left by the irregular meeting of the two 

 principal shells. But their penetration into 

 rocks, and their residence there, makes up 

 the most wonderful part of their history. 



1 Anderson's History of Greenland. 



This animal, when divested of its shell, re- 

 sembles a roundish soft pudding, with no in- 

 strument that seems in the least fitted for 

 boring in to stones, or even penetrating the soft- 

 est substances. It is furnished with two 

 teeth indeed: but these are placed in such a 

 situation as to be incapable of touching the 

 hollow surface of its stony dwelling : it has 

 also two covers to its shell, that open and shut 

 at either end ; but these are totally unservice- 

 able to it as a miner. The instrument with 

 which it performs all its operations, and 

 buries itself in -the hardest rocks, is only a 

 broad fleshy substance, somewhat resembling 

 a tongue, that is seen issuing from the bottom 

 of its shell. With this soft yieldirtg instru- 

 ment, it perforates the most solid marbles ; and 

 having, while yet little and young, made its 

 way, by a very narrow entrance, into the sub- 

 stance of the stone, it then begins to grow 

 bigger, and thus to enlarge its apartment. 



The seeming unfitness, however, of this 

 animal for penetrating into rocks, and there 

 forming a habitation, has induced many 

 philosophers to suppose that they entered the 

 rock while it was yet in a soft state, and from 

 the petrifying quality of the water, that the 

 whole rock hardened round them by degrees. 

 Thus any penetrating quality, it was thought, 

 was unjustly ascribed to. them, as they only 

 bored into a soft substance, that was hardened 

 by time. This opinion, however, has been 

 confuted, in a very satisfactory manner, by 

 Dr Bohads, who observed that many of the 

 pillars of the temple of Serapis at Puteoii 

 were penetrated by these animals. From 

 thence he very justly concludes, that the 

 pholades must have pierced into them since 

 they were erected ; for no workman would 

 have laboured a pillar into form, if it had been 

 honey-combed by worms in the quarry. In 

 short, there can be no doubt but that the 

 pillars were perfectly sound when erected ; 

 and that the pholades have attacked them, 

 during the time in which they continued 

 buried under water, by means of the earth- 

 quake that swallowed up the city. 2 



From hence it appears that, in all nature, 

 there is not a greater instance of perseverance 

 and patience than what this animal is seen to 

 exhibit. Furnished with the bluntest and 

 sofest auger, by slow successive applications, 

 it effects what other animals are incapable of 

 performing by force ; penetrating the hardest 

 bodies only with its tongue. When, while 

 yet naked, and very small, it has effected an 

 entrance, and has buried its body in the stone, 

 it there continues for life at its ease ; the sea- 

 water that enters at the little aperture sup- 

 plying it with luxurious plenty. When the 



* Bohadschde Animalibus Marinis, p. 153. 



