244 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



branous, receives the bile by a large orifice placed near its 

 connection v\'ith the second digestive cavity, which is smaller 

 and more muscular; to this succeeds a third, the sides of which 

 are gathered into broad longitudinal lamellae, precisely simi- 

 lar to those of a ruminant ; and to render the analogy still 

 more perfect, a groove is found running along the walls of 

 the second cavity from one orifice to the other, apparently 

 subservient to rumination. The fourth stomach is thin, and 

 its walls smooth." * A mollusc equipped with the ruminat- 

 ing series of stomachs, is paradoxical enough ; but what shall 

 we say to this ruminating Mollusc when we find him not to 

 be a vegetable feeder ? 



One of these Pleurobranchi is resting on a whelk-shell 

 inhabited by our friend the Hermit-crab, of whose habits 

 we learned something at p. 46. I did not then know that 

 the fine old naturalist Swammerdamm had argued, and very 

 ingeniously too, against the belief that this crab inhabited 

 the shell of another animal, which he calls a fable, and 

 wliicli on anatomical grounds he endeavours to disprove, 

 declaring our friend to be a Crab-Suail.f Although he was 

 unquestionably wrong in this, he was right enough in 

 laughing at Aiistotle and ^lian for asserting that the crab 

 lived with the mollusc, and undertook the office of findinfi 

 food for both. 



Passing from the region of vases and pie-dishes, let us 

 enter that of wide-mouthed bottles, not so attractive to the 

 unlearned age, but full of promise to the mind which sees 



* Owen : Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, p. 558. 

 t Swammerdamm : Dibel der Natur, p. 64, seq. 



