26 ARE FOOD TO BIRDS. 



satiated it may be with the common fare, will sometimes select 

 the common brown snail (Helix aspersa) as a pleasant entre- 

 met.* In some parts of England it is a prevalent and pro- 

 bably a correct opinion, that the shelled snails contribute 

 much to the fattening of their sheep. On the hill above 

 Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, and in the south of Devonshire, 

 the Bulimus acutus (Fig. 3, a), and the Helix virgata (6), 

 p. & -g. which are found there in vast 



^^^^^ profusion, are considered to have 



this good effect ; and it is indeed 

 impossible that the sheep can 

 browse on the short grass of the 

 places just mentioned, without 

 devouring a prodigious quantity of them, especially in the 

 night, or after rain, when the Bulimi and Helices ascend the 

 stunted blades. " The sweetest mutton," says Borlase, " is 

 reckoned to be that of the smallest sheep, which usually feed 

 on the commons where the sands are scarce covered with the 

 green sod, and the grass exceedingly short ; such are the 

 towens or sand hillocks in Piran Sand, Gwythien, Philac, and 

 Senan-green near the Land's End, and elsewhere in like situa- 

 tions. From these sands come forth snails of the turbinated 

 kind, but of different species, and all sizes, from the adult to 

 the smallest just from the egg ; these spread themselves over 

 the plains early in the morning, and whilst they are in quest 

 of their own food among the dews, yield a most fattening 

 nourishment to the sheep. "*j- 



Among birds the Mollusca have many enemies. Several 

 of the duck and gull tribes, as you might anticipate, derive at 



* Gleanings, second series, 316. " A tradesman of Plymouth, having 

 lately placed some oysters in a cupboard, was surprised at finding, in the 

 morning, a mouse caught by the tail, by the sudden collapsing of the shell. 

 About forty years since at Ashburton, at the house of Mrs. Allridge, known 

 by the name of the New Inn, a dish of Wembury oysters was laid in a cellar. 

 A large oyster soon expanded its shell, and at the instant two mice pounced 

 upon the ' living luxury,' and were at once crushed between the valves. 

 The oyster, with the two mice dangling from its shell, was for a long time 

 exhibited as a curiosity. Carew, in his ' History of Cornwall/ tells of an 

 oyster that closed on three mice. Bell's Weekly Messenger for Jan. 7, 1821. 

 An apposite instance is also epigrammatically recorded in the " Greek An- 

 thology": 



" Omnia contrectans, lychnos quoque rodere suetus, 



Mus, labiis concham forte patere videt. 

 Sed cupido falsam morsu vix attigit escam 



Cum patulam clausit subdola Concha domum. 

 Mus stupet, et vitam nee opino carcere perdens, 



Muscipula gemuit se penisse nova." 

 i Hist, of Cornwall, 286. 



