The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 379, July 4, 1829

Kings are the Gods' vicegerents on the earth
The Gods have power, Kings from that power have might,
Kings should excell in virtue and in birth;
Gods punish wrongs, and Kings should maintain right,
They be the suns from which we borrow light.
And they as Kings, should still in justice strive
With Gods, from whom their beings they derive.

    DRAYTON.

COMPANY

Remain upright yet some will quarrel pike,
And common bruit will deem them all alike.
For look, how your companions you elect
For good or ill, so shall you be suspect.

    T. HUDSON.

POESIE

All art is learned by art, this art alone
It is a heavenly gift, no flesh nor bone
Can praise the honey we from Pind distil,
Except with holy fire his breast we fill.
From that spring flows, that men of special chose
Consum'd in learning and perfect in prose;
For to make verse in vain does travel take,
When as a prentice fairer words will make.

    KING OF SCOTS.

TWELVE FOUL FAULTS

A wise man living like a drone, an old man not devout,
Youth disobedient, rich men that are charity without,
A shameless woman, vicious lords, a poor man proudly stout,
Contentious Christians, pastors that their functions do neglect,
A wicked king, no discipline, no laws men to direct,
Are twelve the foulest faults that most commonwealths infect.

    W. WARNER.

RIVERS

Fair Danubie is praised for being wide.
Nilus commended for the seven-fold head;
Euphrates for the swiftness of the tide,
And 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 Bùlimus acùtus and the Hèlix virgàta, which are found there in vast profusion, are considered to have this good effect; and it is indeed impossible that the sheep can 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 Hèlices 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 their own food among the dews, yield a most fattening nourishment to the sheep." (Hist. of Cornwall.)

Among birds the shell-fish have many enemies. Several of the duck and gull tribes, as you might anticipate, derive at least a portion of their subsistence from them. The pied oyster-catcher receives its name from the circumstance of feeding on oysters and limpets, and its bill is so well adapted to the purpose of forcing asunder the valves of the one, and of raising the other from the rock, that "the Author of Nature," as Derham says, "seems to have framed it purely for that use." Several kinds of crows likewise prey upon shell-fish, and the manner in which they force the strong hold of their victims is very remarkable. A friend of Dr. Darwin's saw above a hundred crows on the northern coast of Ireland, at once, preying upon muscles. Each crow took a muscle up in the air twenty or forty yards high, and let it fall on the stones, and thus broke the shell. Many authorities might be adduced in corroboration of this statement. In Southern Africa so many of the Testàcea are consumed by these and other birds, as to have given rise to an opinion that the marine shells found buried in the distant plains, or in the sides of the mountains, have been carried there by their agency, and not, as generally supposed, by eruptions of the sea. Mr. Barrow, who is of this opinion, tells us, in confirmation of it, that "there is scarcely a sheltered cavern in the sides of the mountains that arise immediately from the sea, where living shell-fish may not be found any day of the year. Crows even, and vultures, as well as aquatic birds, detach the shell-fish from the rocks, and mount with them into the air: shells thus carried are said to be frequently found on the very summit even of the Table Mountain. In one cavern at the point of Mussel Bay," he adds, "I disturbed some thousands of birds, and found as many thousands of living shell-fish scattered on the surface of a heap of shells, that for aught I know, would have filled as many thousand wagons." The story, therefore, of the ancient philosopher whose bald pate one of these unlucky birds mistook for a stone, and dropped a shell upon it, thereby killing at once both, is not so tramontane as to stumble all belief.