for the garden whence his course is led,
And banks of _Rhine_ with vines o'erspread.
Take _Loire_ and _Po_, yet all may not compare
With English _Thames_ for buildings rare.

STORER.

* * * * *

The Naturalist.

* * * * *

QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS FEEDING ON SHELL-FISH.

It is nothing surprising that the different species of walrus,
inhabitants of the ocean, should feed partly on shell-fish, 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 shell-fish they may find strewed upon the shores.
The former, according to Carreri Gemelli, feed in particular upon 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 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 racoon, whose fur is esteemed by
hatters next in value to that of the beaver, when near the shore lives
much on them, more 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.

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 _Bulimus acutus_ and
the _Helix virgata_, which are found there i