bottom, ploughing deep furrows in the sand, and end by burrowing
beneath it. There he would stay whole days, entirely out of sight.

One morning I found him on his back, his body bent upward, with the
edge of the base turned in all round towards the centre. Did you ever
see an apple-dumpling before it was boiled, just as the cook was
pinching the dough together? Yes? Then you may imagine the appearance
of my Natica; but no greening pared and cored lay within that puckered
wrapper.

Two days passed with no visible change; but on the third day the
strange gasteropod unfolded both himself and the mystery. From his
long embrace fell the shell of a Mactra, nearly as broad as his own.
Near the hinge was a smooth, round hole, through which the 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