Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/423

 poor Clam had been sucked. Foot, stomach, siphon, muscles, all but a thin strip of mantle, were gone. The problem of the Natica's existence was solved, and the verification was found in more than one Buccinum minus the animal,--the number of the latter victims being still an unknown quantity.

Not in sport had Natty driven the plough, not in idleness had he hollowed the sand. He sought his food in the furrow, and dug riches in the mine.

Doubtless he killed the bivalve,--for until the time of its disappearance it had been in full vigor,--but with what weapon? And whereabouts in that soft bundle was hidden the wimble which bored the hole?

A few days after, a Crab, of the size of a dime, died. Nat soon learned the fact, and enveloped the crustacean as he had done the mollusk. Thirty hours sufficed to drill through the Crab's foundation-wall, and to abstract the unguarded treasure.

Every week some rifled Trivittatum tells a new tale of his felonious deeds.

His last feat was worthy of a cannibal, for it was the savage act of devouring a fellow-Natica. You might suppose that in this case the trap-like operculum would afford an easy entrance to one familiar with its use; but, true to his secret system, the burglar broke in as before. How did he do this? Did he abrade the stone-work with flinty sand until a hole was worn? Did he apply an acid to the limy wall until it opened before him? Who can find the tools of the cunning workman, or the laboratory where his corrodents are composed?

Some rods farther south, the shore is covered with smooth stones, and there you may find the Limpet in great numbers. Patella is the Latin name, but children call it Tent-Shell. Oval at the base, it slopes upward to a point a little aside from the centre.

In this locality they are small, seldom more than an inch in length. At first, you will not readily distinguish them, they are so nearly of the color of the stones to which they are attached. This is one of those Providential adjustments by which the weak are rendered as secure as the strong. Slow in their movements, without offensive weapons, their form and their coloring are their two great safeguards. The stones to which they adhere are variegated with brown and purple blotches of incipient Coralline, and the shells are beautifully mottled with every shade of those colors. Some are lilac, heightening nearly to crimson; others are dark chocolate and white, sharply checkered.

Pebbles and Patella alike are half-covered with Confervae, and from the top of the latter, fronds of Ulva are often found floating like flags. I have one with a clump of Corallina rising from its apex, like a coppice on the summit of a hill.

By atmospheric pressure, its union with the stone is so close that it is not easy to pull it away without injury; but if you slip it along, until by some slight inequality air is admitted beneath the hitherto exhausted receiver, the little pneumatician is obliged to yield.

When turned upon its back, or resting against glass, the soft arms, sprawling aimlessly about, and the bare, round head, give it the appearance of an infant in a cradle, so that a tank well stocked with them might be taken for a Liliputian foundling-hospital.

They are as innocent as they look, being vegetable-feeders, and finding most of their sustenance in matters suspended in the water. A friend of mine placed several upon the side of a vessel coated with Conferva. In a few days, each industrious laborer had mowed round him a circular space several times larger than himself.

They are not ambulatory, but remain on one spot for successive weeks, perhaps longer.

Sometimes they raise the shell so as to allow a free circulation beneath; but if some predatory Prawn draw near, the tent is lowered in a twink