many at a shot. In the latter part of November they gradually take their departure, and, except a few stragglers, are not to be met with before the months of February and March in the following spring.

I cannot give you much certain information respecting the food of snipes. I have killed them with small red worms, with grubs of beetles, and small shell snails in their mouths. On examining the contents of their gizzards, little is to be discovered of their food, which is speedily comminuted by the powerful operation of that muscle. Pebbles, sand, and small

dark seeds (apparently of a Júncus), are usually found in the gizzard. The seeds are probably intended to break the food, more than to constitute nourishment. There is likewise vegetable fibre contained in the stomach.

Here, Mr. Editor, my narrative must close, and I invite naturalists and sportsmen in the southern and western parts of this kingdom, to take up the history of the genus, where I am under the necessity of closing it, and communicate it through the medium of your Magazine.

I shall conclude these observations with some useful remarks, external and anatomical, which a medical friend of mine has furnished me with, regarding the specific differences of this natural family.

SCO'LOPAX.

Anatomical Character. Each species has a gall bladder, two ca ca (fig. 33. a a), and an appendix (6) situated a little higher up the intestines.

Length, 13 in.

Length of bill, 3 in.

Extent, 25 in.

Weight, 12 oz.

33

a

a

Anat. Char. Cæ ca two eighths of

an inch long. The gizzard contained

vegetable fibres of a green colour (very

much resembling moss), small black flat seeds, a pebble, and

sand.

Lower Part of the Tibia naked.

Sc. major (Solitary Snipe). (fig. 34.)-Tail feathers 16; the five outermost white, barred wtih black. Belly, sides, and

Anat. Char. Cæca (fig. 35. a a) one eighth of an inch

a

very

long. In the gizzard were skins of small grubs and fibres of roots; in that of another, which had no food in it, the inner membrane was lying in longitudinal rugæ, each of which was thickly beset with conical papillæ, resembling rows of

teeth.

a 35

Sc. Gallinago (Common Snipe). (fig. 36.)-Tail feathers 14. Belly, sides, and thighs pure white, on the centre of the head an orange-coloured

stripe, bordered on each side with a black one.

Length to the end of the

tail, from 10 in. to 11 in.
Length to the end of the toes,
14 in.
Length of bill, from 2 in. to
3 in.

Extent, from 16 in. to 17 in.
Weight, from 4 to 4

37

a

a

oz.

36

Anat. Char. Ca'ca (fig. 37. a a) one inch and a half long. The gizzard contained small seeds, fibres of roots, and pebbles.

Sc. Gallinula (Jack Snipe). (fig. 38.)- Tail feathers 12. On the centre of the head a black stripe, bordered on each

side with an orange-coloured

one.

Length to the end of the tail, 9 in.

Length to the end of the toes,
10 in.

Length of bill, 11⁄2 in.
Extent, 144 in.
Weight, 2 oz. 3 dr.

59

a

a

38

Anat. Char. Cæca (fig. 39. a a) one inch and three eighths long. The gizzard contained small shells, vegetable fibres, and pebbles.

It is by such communications as the above, that in my opinion your Magazine may be rendered most valuable.

I am, Sir, &c.

H V.D.

ART. VII. The Natural History of Molluscous Animals. In a Series of Letters. By G. J.

Sir,

Letter 2. Indirect Benefits.

You may often have heard it observed that living beings form a continuous and uninterrupted chain,

"lessening down

From Infinite Perfection to the brink

Of dreary nothing,"

from which no link can be removed without disordering the uniformity of the whole. If applied, as is usually done, to the external appearances or internal organisation of animals, the comparison is not altogether correct; but none can be more so if it is intended merely as an illustration of their mutual dependence upon one another. This is so close and intimate that we cannot calculate the probable effect of the annihilation of even the most insignificant species. It might involve the destruction of some other immediately dependent on it for the supply of a necessary want; the extermination of this again would be but the precursor of another's death, another still would succeed and ruin would spread around until man himself fell in its embrace. In this view it may with great propriety be said that

"Each shell, each crawling insect holds a rank
Important in the plan of Him, who framed

This scale of beings; holds a rank, which lost
Would break the chain, and leave a gap behind
Which Nature's self would rue.”

One, and indeed the chief, circumstance which binds animals so closely is, the dependence each has upon another for a supply of necessary food. On contemplating this part of creation we behold a scene of havoc and devastation perpetually and every where going on, so that "there is not,” as Smellie has remarked, "perhaps a single species of animated beings, whose existence depends not, more or less, upon the death and destruction of others." That this order of things, however cruel it may appear to us, is subservient to the good of the whole, cannot admit of any doubt; and it is my purpose, in the present letter, to convince you by some detail of facts, that molluscous animals in this relation play a not unimportant part. But, as it would be tedious to enumerate all or the greater portion of the animals to which they furnish nutriment, we shall confine ourselves to those which possess some peculiar interest, or which minister directly to the luxuries or necessities of man.

To commence with quadrupeds. It is nothing surprising that the different species of walrus, inhabitants of ocean, should feed partly on shellfish, but perhaps you would not expect to find among their enemies animals strictly terrestrial. Yet the oran otang and the preacher monkey often descend to the sea to devour what shellfish they may find strewed upon the shores. The former, according to Carreri Gemelli, feed in particular on a large species of oyster, and fearful of inserting their paws between the open valves, lest the oyster should close and crush them, they first place a tolerably large stone within the shell, and then drag out their victim with safety. The latter are no less ingenious. Dampier saw several of them take up oysters from the beach, lay them on a stone, and beat them with another till they demolished the shells. Wafer observed the monkeys in the Island of Gorgonia to proceed in a similar manner; and those of the Cape of Good Hope, if we are to credit La Loubere, perpetually amuse themselves by transporting shells from the shore to the tops of the mountains †, with the intention undoubtedly of devouring them at leisure. Even the fox, when pressed by hunger, will deign to eat muscles and other bivalves; and the raccoon, whose fur is esteemed by hatters next in value to that of the beaver, when near the shore lives much on them, more

* Bingley's Animal Biography.

+ Buffon's Nat. Hist. i. 221. English translation.

particularly on oysters. We are told that it will watch the opening of the shells, dexterously put in its paw, and tear out the contents. Not, however, without danger, for sometimes, we are assured, by a sudden closure, the oyster will catch the thief, and detain him until he is drowned by the return of the tide. The story, I regret to say, appears somewhat apocryphal, for, nec lex est justior ulla,

Quam necis artifices arte perire suâ.” †

These are amusing facts; the following, to the epicure at least, may be equally interesting. In some parts of England it is a prevalent and probably a correct opinion, that the shelled-snails contribute much to the fattening of their sheep. On the hill above Whitsand Bay in Cornwall, and in the south of Devonshire, the Bùlimus acutus Drap. (fig. 40. a) and the Hèlix virgata (b), which are found there in vast profusion, are considered to have this good effect; and it is indeed impossible that the sheep can

40

browse on the short grass of the places just mentioned, without devouring a prodigious quantity of them, especially in the night, or after rain, when the Bùlimi and Hélices ascend the stunted blades. "The sweetest mutton," says Borlase, "is reckoned to be that of the smallest sheep, which feed on the commons where the sands are scarce covered with the green sod, and the grass exceedingly short; such are the towens or sand hillocks in Piran Sand, Gwythien, Philac, and Senangreen, near the Land's End, and elsewhere in like situations. From these sands come forth snails of the turbinated kind, but of different species, and all sizes from the adult to the smallest just from the egg; these spread themselves over the plains early in the morning, and, whilst they are in quest of

* The following note is taken from Bell's Weekly Messenger, for Jan. 7. 1821. A tradesman of Plymouth, having lately placed some oysters in a cupboard, was surprised at finding, in the morning, a mouse caught by the tail, by the sudden collapsing of the shell. About forty years since at Ashburton, at the house of Mrs. Allridge, known by the name of the New Inn, a dish of Wembury oysters was laid in a cellar. A large oyster soon expanded its shell, and at the instant two mice pounced upon the "living luxury," and were at once crushed between the valves The oyster, with the two mice dangling from its shell, was for a long time exhibited as a curiosity. Carew, in his History of Cornwall, tells of an oyster that closed on three mice. An apposite instance is also epigrammatically recorded in the Greek Anthology.

+["There is no juster law, than that the contrivers of death should perish in their own devices."]

Mont. Test. Brit. p. 347. and 417.