THE DACTYLE PHOLAS. $6$ 



they were erected ; for no workman would have 

 Jaboured a pillar into form, if it had been honey- 

 combed by worms in the quarry. In short, there 

 can be no doubt but that the pillars were perfectly 

 sound when erected, and that these animals attacked 

 them during the time in which they continued buried 

 under water, from the earthquake that swallowed up 

 the city. 



From hence it appears that, in all nature, there 

 is not a greater instance of perseverance and pa- 

 tience than what this animal is seen to exhibit. 

 Furnished with the bluntest and softest augre, by 

 slow successive applications, it effects what other 

 animals are incapable of performing by force, pene- 

 trating the hardest bodies only with its tongue. 

 When, while yet very small, it has effected an 

 entrance and buried its body in the stone, it there 

 continues for life at its ease ; the sea-water that 

 enters at the little aperture supplying it with luxu- 

 rious plenty. Upon this seemingly thin diet it by 

 degrees grows larger and larger, and soon finds 

 itself under the necessity of increasing the dimen- 

 sions of its habitation and its shell. 



The motion of the Fholas is slow beyond concep- 

 tion ; its progress keeps pace with the growth of 

 its body ; and, in proportion as it becomes larger, it 

 makes its way farther into the rock. When it has 

 got a certain way in, it then turns from its former 

 direction and hollows downward ; till, at last, when 

 its habitation is completed, the whole apartment 

 resembles the bowl of a tobacco-pipe ; the hole in 

 the shank being that by which the animal entered. 



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