178 INSTINCT OF MOLLUSCA. 



interesting passage in the history of the animal, not proba- 

 tory of any superior " sagacity and intelligence" certainly, 

 but illustrative of the care of its beneficent Creator, 

 who has bestowed upon it the instinct to do this for a 

 purpose of which it is itself wholly ignorant : " things 

 reasonless thus warned by nature be." It is the same un- 

 erring and unvarying principle, like that superior light 

 which was aforetime believed to be granted to those indivi- 

 duals in whom the light of reason was extinct, that directs 

 the Pholades in their operations, moors the mussel to the 

 rock, and to all others teaches them their proper devices. 



I am aware that some naturalists have gone so far as to 

 say, that the mollusca, in certain acts, appear to be guided 

 by intelligence or forethought,* and that they are " capable 

 of deriving some knowledge from experience." The facts 

 just mentioned will not warrant such a conclusion, which is 

 also, it seems to me, at variance with the character of their 

 nervous system ; and the instances usually adduced in proof 

 of it are few, either doubtful or capable of other expla- 

 nation. The Mya byssifera of Otho Fabricius, the excellent 

 author of the " Natural History of Greenland," when exposed 

 and uncovered, affixes itself by a byssus ; but when im- 

 mersed in the crevices of stones or of millepores, it uses no 

 such precaution,! rendered unnecessary to its safety from 

 its snugger berth. We are told that oysters, when removed 

 from situations that are constantly covered with the sea, 

 from want of experience, open their shells, lose their water, 

 and die in a few days : but, when taken from similar situa- 

 tions, and laid down in places from which the sea occa- 

 sionally retires, they feel the effect of the sun's rays, or of 

 the cold air, or, perhaps, apprehend the attacks of enemies, 

 and accordingly keep the valves close till the tide returns. J 

 The spout-fish is still more subtile and chary. " It is 

 remarkable," says Mr. Smellie, " that the spout-fish (Fig. 

 31), though it lives in salt water, abhors salt. When a 



* Oken, in a characteristic passage, and worth quoting as a curious 

 extract, says, " Circumspection and foresight appear to be the thoughts of 

 the bivalve mollusca, and snails. Gazing upon a Snail, one believes that he 

 finds the prophesying goddess sitting upon the tripod. What majesty is in 

 a creeping snail, what reflection, what earnestness, what timidity, and yet at 

 the same time what firm confidence ! surely a snail is an exalted symbol of 

 mind slumbering deeply within itself. The old artists must have felt this 

 signification, as in many of their representations they have introduced a 

 snail. One can hardly think that in so doing they wished to express such 

 common and lascivious ideas as are at present manifested openly or secretly 

 by our daily enjoyments." Physiophilosophy, Trans, publ. by Ray Society, 

 657. t Faun. Groenl. 409. 



% Bingley's Anim. Biography, iii. 564. 



