OF CORNWALL. 275 
keeps them fhut with equal force, and (as I have been informed by 
a clergyman of great veracity, who had the account from a credi- 
table eye-witnefs to the fadt) its enemies have a Ml imparted to 
them to counteract this great force. As he was hilling one day, a 
fifherman obferved a lobfter to attempt an oyfler feveral times, but 
as foon as the lobfter approached, the oyfter fhut his fhell ; at length 
the lobfter, having waited with great attention till the oyfter opened 
again, made a fhift to throw a ftone between the gaping fhells, 
fprung upon its prey, and devoured it. The polity of fea-animals 
is it feems a ftate of nature, a continual war, where the fifh 
in their feveral ranks have as many various arts of oppreffmg and 
devouring their inferiors, as of fecuring and defending thernfelves 
from their more powerful antagonifts ; all impreffed by their graci- 
ous Maker for their mutual and refpedfive prefervation. We find 
not the fame univerfal enmity between the greater and lefs of ter- 
reftrial creatures. Some antipathies indeed, fome few carnivorous 
birds and beafts of prey there are by land, but in the fea the eggs, 
the fpawn, the fry, the fmall, the weak, are in their feveral de- 
grees the common and conftant prey, food, and fupport of the 
greater, older, and more powerful. Why then are fuch different 
appetites implanted ? Why do not the land-animals prey upon one 
another with equal eagernefs ? Why, there is lefs need of animal- 
food on the land than on the fea, becaufe vegetable food is every 
where at hand on the furface of the earth, and the provident care 
of man can preferve in one feafon what does not grow but will be 
equally wanted in another ; the marine vegetables are more fparingly 
given, in lefs variety, at greater depths, fubjedt to the violences of 
their native element; the medium which fifh live in is more boyant, 
and confequently the life more erratick than that of land-animals ; 
their digeftion alfo for the generality (from the coldnefs of the me- 
dium they live in) is lefs able to bear the toughnefs and harfh falts 
of marine plants ; fifh therefore muft have other fupports, and 
the animal food is difperfed in every creek and cranny, as the 
rich and proper nourifhment of the finny race. This occafions a 
vaft confumption tis true, but the provifion nature has made is 
equal to it, the fecundity of fifh exceeding all conception. 
Of the cetaceous kind there are but few fifh, and their eggs few ; 
in the cartilaginous betwixt fifty and one hundred eggs ; but in all ovi- 
parous fifties (of which clals moft fifh are) the eggs are fcarce nume- 
rable', there being found in one cod (it is faid f ) 9,344,000 eggs. 
Of fhells we have great quantities, but rather more varieties than sect. xin. 
forts on our Cornifh coafts. The fineft are generally fmall, and in our Of fhells. 
* Artedi de partib. Pifc. page 31. f Nat. Difpl. 8vo, page 93, vol. I. 
beft 
