THE W0XDER3 OF THE SHORE. 59 



destruction the means of fresh creation, by bury- 

 ing them in the sands, as soon as washed on 

 shore, to fertilize the strata of some future 

 world. It is but a shell-fish truly ; but the 

 great Cuvier thought it remarkable enough to 

 devote to its anatomy elaborate descriptions 

 and drawings, which have done more perhaps 

 than any others to illustrate the curious economy 

 of the whole class of bivalve, or double-shelled, 

 raollusca. If you wish to know more about it 

 than we can tell you, open Mr. Gosse's last book, 

 the Aquarium, at p. 222. 



" iMany persons are aware that the common 

 cockle can perform gymnastic feats of no mean 

 celebrity, but the evolutions of Signor Tuber- 

 culato are worth seeing. Some of the troupe I 

 had put into a pan of sea-water ; others I had 

 turned out info a dish dry, as knowing that an 

 occasional exposure to tlic air is a contingency 

 that they are not unused to. By and by, as we 

 were fjuictly reading, our attention was attracted 

 to the table where the dish was placed, by a 

 rattUng uproar, as if flint-stones were rolling one 

 over the other about the disli. ' O look at the 

 cockles ! ' was tlie exclamation ; and tliey were 

 indeed displaying their agilily, and their beauty 



