164 NATURAL HISTORY of NOR WA T. 



forts, as far as I have been able to learn, go by the name of the 

 Short-fhell, and are ufed, as mofl of the former, only for baits 

 on the fifhing-hooks. The Scots eat them like Oyfters. They 

 are found commonly covered on clay-ground. The infide of 

 thefe fhells affords that fine chalky fubftance, which is reckoned 

 a very good abforbent, and is alfo produced by the thick common 

 Oyfter-fhells; but they muft be firft as it were calcined by the 

 air. Their manner of breeding can only be conjectured by the 

 fmall fhells, not bigger than the fcale of a Fifh, which flick fre- 

 quently to them ; which feems to proceed from that part of the 

 fhell which the Oyfter always keeps clofe, like a hinge. 

 Enquiry. If We enquire how all the fhells of thefe various kinds of 



Oyfters grow, and widen with the enclofed Fifh, tho' it is 

 not, like the Lobfters thin cruftaceous covering, as it were con- 

 creted from the body of the Fifh, but is evidently nourifhed 

 from without, and enlarged from the fand and flime of the fea; 

 if we make this enquiry, I fay, we fhall hardly find any fatif- 

 fa£tory account of it hitherto given. Nothing yet propofed will 

 fuperfede our enquiring after the fomething unknown, or the 

 occult quality of our old Ariftotelians, as they exprelfed them- 

 felves ; for they, at leafl in the eyes of the world, would not 

 appear to be entirely ignorant, but had fomething to fay upon 

 every fubje&. 



The wifdom of God is mofl wonderfully difplayed even in 

 his minutefl works; and our knowledge is but very imperfect, 

 not only with regard to thefe, Hut of the greater works of 

 creation, and their particular properties j tho' this is an age which 

 would pretend to open all difficulties, like fo many lock's, with 

 the mafter-key of demonftration *. 



SECT. III. 



dinger. Muflinger, or Cockles, Pe&unculi, which we otherwife call, by 

 way of eminence, the Shell-fifh, are in plenty here as in other 

 places, namely, the common fort, and thofe which are alfo called 

 the Crow-fhell, from the crow, who is very fond of them, and 

 tries his skill by opening them in this manner : the bird picks 

 the fhell up in his bill, and flies up very high, and then drops it 

 on the rocks, which breaks the fhell to pieces. Thefe are pickled, 

 like Oyfters, for exportation. 



* The curious Frid. Chrift. Letter, in his Teftaceo-Theologie, P. I. L. i. c. iv. 

 §. 1 1 6. advances fomething on this head; but at the fame time owns that we cannot 

 inveftigate the true caufe of this wonderful production, nor of many other particulars 

 in the works of nature. 



The 



