Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/179

Rh of this character cost the oyster-planters some $10,000. Said "an eminent naturalist," "No fish has teeth strong enough to crush oyster-shells." This is certainly a mistake. I believe that oystermen regard a three-year-old oyster as comparatively safe in this respect, and their apprehensions appertain to the younger beds.



At Long Branch, and in fact pretty much on the entire eastern seaboard, is often found the periwinkle, or great sea-snail (Lunatia heros). These are quite numerous. Oystermen have gravely told me that this animal kills the oyster. It has an operculum, or cover to the mouth of the shell, and they say that with this, as a knife, it opens the oyster. All this one might believe but for two difficulties: first, you could as easily open an oyster with the edge of a lady's visiting-card, for the operculum is of soft horn, and not thicker than a card; secondly, this Lunatia is not lunatic enough to try the experiment, as it is constitutionally a strict vegetarian, living upon the juicy sea-lettuce, and other algæ, so that on dietetic principles it has serious objections to the bivalve.

There is a small univalve, seldom much over an inch in length, which is justly chargeable with murderous assault on the oyster. The watermen very properly call it the drill. The latest name it has received from the conchologists is Urosalpinx cinerea. It is, however, more generally known among scientific men as Buccinum cinereum. It is a very pretty shell. The tongue is set with three rows of teeth like a file; it is, in fact, a tongue-file, or dental band, and is called by conchologists the lingual ribbon. (See Fig. 9.) This tongue-file is perfectly flexible, and with it the Buccinum drills a hole through the hard shell of the oyster. Owing to the fact that, when using this