The Zoologist— March, 1869. 1589 



fishermen tell me they are not so easily found : they are small bivalve 

 shells, beautifully marked with purple and green, and having often two 

 bright pink or dark purple spots on either side of the hinge : they are 

 obtained, like most olher living bivalves, by searching for the little round 

 holes in the wet sand, which indicates their whereabouts, and by dig- 

 ging quickly beneath to the depth of a foot or more. But, as regards 

 shells, perhaps the raosl wonderful peculiarity of Herm is the shell- 

 beds at the north and north-east end of the island : here the tide often 

 rises forty feet, and occasionally as high as forty-five feet: at low-tide 

 great floors of rugged rocks are left uncovered, with bits of sandy shore 

 showing here and there, and altogether presenting unveiled one of the 

 most dangerous-looking coasts 1 ever saw anywhere: at one point 

 especially do the shells seem to have been accumulated by the tides 

 and current in immense numbers : cartloads are taken away at times 

 to be burnt into lime : they are for the most part very minute, and 

 many of them are very beautiful ; so minute, indeed, are many of them 

 that it is almost impossible to pick them up, except by means of a pair 

 of forceps or the tip of a tea-spoon ; and this also the more especially 

 if the day be such a one as the first, on which I lay on the north-east 

 bank, shivering and teeth-chattering, in a cold east wind. How many 

 species I have collected 1 cannot say at present, as they are all care- 

 fully packed up in little boxes of cotton. Perhaps the two commonest 

 and most delicate-looking species are little pink-tipped conical and 

 minute pink spiral shells : the latter can be obtained in any numbers 

 in one little bay at the back of Herm. 



Whilst lying on the north-east bank one day I was startled by the 

 loud noise made by a flock of oystercatchers on the rocks, and looking 

 up observed a flock of these birds, of whose numbers I could form no 

 conception : nowhere have I ever seen such immense numbers as I to- 

 day beheld : they were crowding on to a particular point of rock to 

 such an extent that a great many of them could not obtain standing 

 room : at least 1 should think one-third of the whole were continually 

 hovering and alighting again, quite unable to obtain a foothold without 

 displacing their companions : a perpetual piping was all this time kept 

 up by the birds, though at the distance, and from the number of the 

 bu-ds, it sounded in my ears merely as a loud and confused "hum": 

 it is worthy of notice also that during the rest of my stay on the island, 

 though the tides left the rocks in a very similar state, I never again ob- 

 served anything like the number seen on that particular day, although 

 the numbers of the other species seemed in no way diminished. 



