THE LIMA'S NEST 
209 
this pretty bivalve, and I had admired the beauty and elegance of the shell, but 
hitherto I had been unacquainted with the life and manners of its inhabitant. 
Mr. and Miss Alder had got it in the same kind of coral at Rothesay, so that 
when Miss Alder got a cluster of the coral cohering in a mass, she said, “ O, here 
is the Lima'sntsi ! ” and breaking it up the Lima was found snug in the middle of 
it. The coral nest is curiously constructed, and remarkably well fitted to be a 
safe residence tor this beautiful animal. The fragile shell does not nearly cover 
the mollusc — the most delicate part of it, a beautiful orange fringe-work, being 
altogether outside of the shell. Had it no extra protection, the half-exposed 
animal would be a tempting mouthful — quite a bonne-houche to some prowling 
haddock or whiting ; but He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb teaches 
this little creature, which He has so elegantly formed, curious arts of self-preserva- 
tion. It is not contented with hiding it.self among the loose coral, for the first 
rude wave might lay it naked and bare. It becomes a marine mason, and builds 
a house or nest. It chooses to dwell in a coral grotto. But in constructing this 
grotto, it shows that it is not merely a mason, but a rope spinner, and a tapestry 
weaver, and a plasterer. Were it merely a mason it would be no easy matter to 
cause the polymorphous coral to cohere. Cordage, then, is necessary to bind 
together the angular fragments of the coral, and this cordage it spins ; but it 
spins it as one of the secrets of the deep. Somehow or another, though it has no 
hands, it contrives to intertwine this yarn which it has formed among the numerous 
bits of coral so as firmly to bind a handful of it together. Externally, this habita- 
tion is rough, and therefore better fitted to elude or to ward off enemies ; but 
though rough externally, within all is smooth and lubricous, for the fine yarn is 
woven into a lining of tapestry, and the interstices are filled up with fine slime, 
so that it is smooth as plaster-work, not unlike the patent Intonaco of my ex- 
cellent, ingenious friend, Mrs. Marshall. Not being intended, however, like her 
valuable composition, to keep out damp or to bid defiance to fire, while the inter- 
twining cordage keeps the cojral walls together, the fine tapestry mixed with 
smooth and moist plaster hides all asperities, so that there is nothing to injure 
the delicate appendages of the enclosed animal. Tapestry, as a covering for 
walls, was once the proud and costly ornament of royal apartments ; but ancient 
though the art was, I shall answer for it that our little marine artisan took no 
hint from the Gobelins, nor from the workmen of Arras, nor from those of 
Athens, nor even from the earliest (apissiers of the East. I doubt not, that from 
the time Noah’s Ark rested on the mountain of Ararat, the forefathers of these 
beautiful little Limas have been constructing their coral cottages, and lining them 
with well-wrought tapestry in the peaceful Bay of Lamlash. * 
Further, in 1852 : 
We would not mention the Limas, as these beautiful creatures, and their coral 
nests, are elsewhere described, were it not that on this occasion we observed, as 
we did also afterwards, that they do not always keep by one order of architecture. 
In some places of the lake [Lamlash Bay] we noticed that their habitations were 
not formed of the millepore coral, but of fragments of shells. Whether this was 
owing to a scarcity of coral as building material in their neighbourhood, or 
whether it was owing to diversity of taste, we cannot say, but certainly one would 
not have supposed, on looking at their workmanship, that the coral-masons and 
the shell-masons were children of the same family, which, nevertheless, they 
seem to be. We never saw birds of the same species differing so much in the 
fabric and structure of their nests. The coral nests and the shell nests differed 
as much in fabric and form as the nests of the mavis and magpie. The coral 
nest was comparatively smooth without, and, like the nest of the mavis, 
plastered within. The shell nest was unplastered within, and outside it was 
almost as rugged, and as well protected by sharp processes, as the nest of the 
magpie, with its impregnable fortification of thorns. The shell nest, about the 
size of a man’s hand, was a rugged mass of sharp-pointed fragments of broken 
shells, bound tightly together by almost unseen cordage of byssus. The inex- 
* Landsborough, “ Excursions to Arran with reference to the Natural History 
of the Island,” 1847, pp. 319-321. 
