Pvn H,i I'UitlS

LIMA. 91
of our feathered songsters in woods and hedges, like
schoolboys. A very intelligent naturalist, Mr. David
Robertson of Glasgow, has favoured me with more in-
formation respecting the habits of L. Mans in Scotch
waters. He says, " In confinement they build freely ;
and so far as my observations go, they live longer in
that state when they are supplied with the requisite
materials, but failing such supply they frequently make
nests of their own byssus. They also spin their byssal
threads to assist them in ascending perpendicular or
steep places; and, like the common mussel, the Lima
often suspends itself by one or more fibres. Its attach-
ment, however, is only slight; for the least irritation
or alarm causes it to detach itself from the cable and
bound off. It does not seem to be particular as to the
kind of building-material which it uses. At Lochronsa
in Arran I found their nests among the muddy roots of
Phyllophora rubens, without the addition of any harder
substance. At Rothesay the nests are made of small
gravel and ; at Cumbrae they soon fill the dredge, being
formed of thick and matted clusters of nullipore. On
this bank I never find them free ; they are all encased,
at all seasons of the year, young and old, from the size
of a pea to the full-grown state, each having its own
separate nest. A remarkable peculiarity
of Lima con-
sists in the tenacious grasp of its tentacles. Some-
times when my finger touched the animal, it was rapidly
seized by the tentacles, as by those of an Actinia, and
so firmly that I have thus dragged the Lima round the
tank. It seldom let go its hold till the tentacles were
torn away, or (as I believe) voluntarily thrown off by
the animal. The tentacles so detached still adhere
closely to the object they have grasped,
their free ends
twisting about as if in conscious life, and they are with