THE LIMA'S NEST 
21 I 
stones at low water mark ; they were broken in turning over 
the stones, and the Limae swarm off in all directions. The larger 
individuals were always alone in the nest ; but, according to 
Dennis, this was not the case with the young, of which he 
found, he believed, as many as seven in one nest.* It is pro- 
bable, however, that there is some mistake here ; the explana- 
tion being, possibly, that several young flushed from the same 
stone, and supposed to come from a common nest, came in 
reality from as many small, perhaps ill-defined nests. 
In 1865, Lacaze-Duthiers examined nests of the same Lima at 
Port Mahon, Minorca ; and his description is accompanied by 
a figure on which the illustration found in the natural history 
books is based. Shells of Trochus, of Lima itself, algaj, frag- 
ments of wood and coarse gravel are fastened together, the 
observer says, by numerous filaments resembling strands of 
tow ; and the whole forms a mass, more or less spheroid, with a 
very variable, sometimes scarcely visible, orifice. The creature 
evidently uses, more or less indiscriminately, the various objects 
which happen to lie near ; sometimes big fragments of stone 
were attached to delicate fragments of alga, and so forth ; in- 
ternally there was always a lining of threads. The structures 
were found in plenty, usually beneath large flat stones, but it 
was evident from some of the specimens that they were not 
necessarily adherent to large foreign bodies. f 
Finally, in 1895, Robertson (whose communications to Jeffreys 
in 1863 have already been noted) returned to the subject of Lima 
Ilians. :[ Recalling his long experience of the animals’ nesting 
habits in the Firth of Clyde, this naturalist says that where 
nullipore is plentiful the creatures build freely with that material ; 
if such is not to be had, shells, stones and other debris are used, 
and though usually preferring small objects, the animals some- 
times contrive, in want of more suitable material, to use shells 
over inches long, and nearly as broad ; in other cases, when 
hard materials are not obtainable, soft filamentous algae are 
utilised. Hundreds of nests had been examined, but the author 
had never found more than one Lima, old or young, in the same 
nest ; except in torn ones, into which two or three may some- 
times get by accident. This animal, like most of her kind, 
sends adrift her thousands of ova into the open sea, and by 
the time the young have attained a size of little more than a 
quarter of an inch, they build their own separate nests. Robert- 
son’s principal object was to record an apparently new depar- 
* Jeffreys, lorn, cil., pp. 90-2. 
t Lacaze-Duthiers, Description dii gite des Limes, Annaies des Sciences 
NiUurelles, Zool. (5), iv. (1865), pp. 347-52. 
I David Robertson, LL.D., the celebrated naturalist of Cumbrae (//. 1806, 
d. 1896), read papers on Lima hians to the Natural History Society of Glasgow 
in 1859, and again, as now quoted, in 1895 {Proc. and Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc., 
Glasgow, n. s., iv. 1897, pp. 331-2) ; the writer is not aware that the former paper 
was printed. 
