friends, I have yet a few more notes to add to the zoological portion of this volume. The chief of these collections were sent me by Mr. William Thompson from Weymouth, and by the Rev. C. Kingsley from Torquay; and to these gentlemen, as well as to other friends who have aided me, I beg thus to express my grateful obligations.
THE SPINOUS COCKLES.
Among a number of animals of great interest kindly sent to me in January from the vicinity of Torquay, by the Rev. C. Kingsley, were a posse of Cockles; not the plebeian sort that boys with stentorian lungs cry about the streets of sea-port towns at "twopence a quart," but those giants, Cardium aculeatum and C. tuberculatum, the real aristocracy of the Cockle kind. The favour of the kind donor was the greater, as the sands of Livermead and Paignton, whence these were procured, are almost the only British locality for the species, especially the latter, which is among the rarest as well as finest of our native bivalves.
They looked healthy when turned out of the jar, though they had performed their journey up, in that bitter, almost Arctic, weather that we had at the beginning of January; and, under the excitement of the genial atmosphere of the parlour, they presently grew quite frisky. Many persons are aware that the Common Cockle can perform gymnastic feats of no mean celebrity, but the evolutions of Signor Tuberculato are worth seeing. Some of the troupe I had put into a pan of sea-water, others I had turned out
