Shell

“ If you look along the sea sand of some shores, you will find the tube-homes of these sea worms. In their way of making a shell-home, and making it larger as they grow, they are like the little shell-fish you have read of. ”

“ Although shells take on many different shapes, they are much alike inside. Each has a foot, a breathing siphon, a tiny brain and heart, and a fleshy mantle which secretes lime for shell-building. Most true mollusks have eyes, but a few are blind. ”

“ Among the shell-bearing molluscous animals, the little shell which contains the creature in its youngest stages remains ever after as an integral part of the outer calcareous case. As the inhabitant grows, it continues to add band after band to the outer edge of the shell, each of which, whilst preserving the general symmetry and proportions of the whole structure, increases its dimensions in every way. ”

“ Not a single shell seems to have become extinct during the last six thousand five hundred years! The shells which lie embedded in the subsoils beneath the old coast-line are exactly those which still live in our seas. ”

“ FORNICATED. Arched or vaulted, as the exfoliations on the costæ of Tridacna Elongata, fig. 157.
FOSSIL SHELL. A shell is considered to be in a fossil state when, the soft parts having ceased to exist, it is deprived of all its animal juices, has lost all, or nearly all its natural colour, and is thus changed in its chemical composition, when little or nothing is left but a mere bone, which is embedded in a sedimentary deposit. ”

“ The shell becomes like a boat it is true, but its inhabitant neither points a sail nor plies the oar, but propels itself along stem foremost by a muscular action, which by alternately compressing and loosening a kind of siphon, throws out jets or gushes of water, which by the resistance they meet with from the surrounding fluid, give the desired onward motion, and away the swimmer goes, his long arms gathered closely together, and streaming behind like the tail of a comet, and its round eyes keeping a sharp look-out on either side. ”

“ Most usually he walks about at the bottom of the sea on his long arms, something like the Cuttle-fish, feeding on the marine vegetation; the shell is then uppermost; if we could look inside of it we should see numerous little chambers or cells, the larger and outermost of which only are inhabited by the mollusk, the others being filled with air render the whole light and buoyant. ”

“ Shell. Subnacred, irregular, flat, elongated, subequivalve, inequilateral, with summits anterior, distant and flexed inferiorly; hinge oral and toothless; ligament undivided, thick, inserted in a round pit excavated in a projecting apophysis upon each valve; a moderately large subcentral muscular impression, and two very small ones altogether anterior. Inhabits the Indian and Australasian seas. Six living species. One fossil. ”

“ Respecting the construction of the shell it may be observed that it is produced in the thickness of the mantle, or cloak-like covering which envelopes the body of the animal; the formation commences at the small end or spire, and gradually goes on, whorl upon whorl, as the still widening circles which give the ridgy appearance to most univalves, are called. ”

“ Testacea (L. testa, a shell) . Molluscs with a shelly covering, as the Oyster, Whelk, &c.
Univalve (L. unus, one; valvæ, doors) . A shell composed of one calcareous piece, as the Periwinkle.
Umbones. The base of a shell about the hinge.
Viviparous (L. vivus, alive; pario, I bring forth) . The animals which bring forth their young alive. See Oviparous.
Whorl. The spiral turn of a shell.
Zoology (Gr. zoon, animal; logos, a discourse) . That branch of science that treats of the habits, structure, and classification of animals.
Zoologist. One who is acquainted with the science of Zoology. ”

“ That others of these Shells, according to the nature of the substances adjacent to them, have, by a long continuance in that posture, been petrify'd and turn'd into the nature of stone, just as I even now observ'd several sorts of Wood to be. That oftentimes the Shell may be found with one kind of substance within, and quite another without; having, perhaps, been fill'd in one place, and afterwards translated to another, which I have very frequently observ'd in Cockle, Muscle, Periwincle, and other shells, which I have found by the Sea side. ”

“ How beautifully is the wisdom of God developed in shaping out and moulding shells! and especially in the particular value of the constant angle which the spiral of each species of shell affects,—a value connected by a necessary relation with the economy of the material of each, and with its stability and the conditions of its buoyancy. ”

“ Shell. Oval or globular, wrinkled; spire middling and pointed; aperture wide, ovate, grooved, and sometimes canaliculated anteriorly; the right edge concave and trenchant; the left nearly straight and marked in the middle with two or three folds; operculum horny. Inhabits the Indian Ocean. One species only is found in America. Forty-nine living species. ”

“ Well, because this is a hobby and science that spans the world. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Greeks and Indians all have their own local names for shells. But scientists everywhere give things in nature Latin names. Shells of the same sort carry the same Latin label on every beach in every sea. Much of the fascination of shell collecting is learning these names and how they were derived. . . for shells have been named for almost everything. We can't catalog 100,000 species here, but let's call off the names of a few of the interesting specimens you might come across. ”

“ Yes, my dear, a fish has lived in each of these little shells. I have sometimes picked them up on the beach with the fish in them; but they are generally washed on shore when the sea is rough, and the fish dies and falls out of the shell before it is picked up; as fish, you know, cannot live out of the water. Some day I will show you a very beautiful shell, which I have in my cabinet; it is the shell of the paper nautilus, which is a very curious little fish. ”

“ Not only is the interior of the shell made lustrous and beautiful, but this tendency is exerted toward all objects that come in contact with the soft body of the mollusk, either by intrusion simply within the shell, or deeply within the organs and tissues of the animal itself. ”

“ Specimens.—The first thing that the amateur needs to learn about a shell is that it may be living or dead. As a general thing, what is technically called a "dead" shell is worthless in a cabinet. A live shell is one which has been collected with a living mollusc in it, and then duly cleaned, preserving all its beautiful colors. ”

“ I stooped on a sudden and picked up an almost perfect shell, which had undoubtedly belonged to some animals very much resembling some of the present day. Having secured the prize, I followed in the wake of my uncle. "Do you see this?" I said.
"Well," said the Professor, with the most imperturbable tranquility, "it is the shell of a crustaceous animal of the extinct order of the trilobites; nothing more I assure you." ”

“ Shell, when full grown and mature, is solid, oval, convex, very smooth, involute; the spire entirely posterior, very small, often concealed by a calcareous layer deposited by the lobes of the mantle, leaving in some species a small cavity like an umbilicus; aperture longitudinal, very narrow, slightly curved, as long as the shell, with edges internally dentated, and notched at each extremity. ”

“ The second class embraces the mollusks, or animals inhabiting shells. They are destitute of a spinal marrow, and for the most part their muscles are attached to the external covering, called the shell, although this shell is sometimes internal. ”

“ Shell. More or less thick, subtriquetral, equivalved, inequilateral, with summits contiguous and inclined anteriorly; hinge similar, formed by a numerous series of very sharp teeth, pectinated and arranged in a line interrupted under the summit; ligament internal, short, inserted in a little oblique pit in each valve; two muscular impressions. Inhabits the British and American seas. Forty-five living species. Four fossil. ”

“ The shell is first cut into square pieces, by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle; the drill being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp corner ”

“ At the same time it must not be forgotten that the old systems of classification, which were based almost entirely on indications drawn from the shell alone, have been strangely little disturbed by the new principles of arrangement, which depend mainly on structural points in the animal. This fact only tends to emphasise the truth that the shell and animal are in the closest possible connexion, and that the shell is a living part of the organism, and is equally sensitive to external influences. ”

“ It is pronounced tes-ta-shus, comes from the Latin testaceus—having a Shell, and means consisting of, or composed of shells; so we find that a testacean is a shell-fish, and testaceology is the science of shells. Johnson’s second meaning of the word testaceous is ‘Having continuous, not jointed shells, opposed to crustaceous.’ So we find that some naturalists call those testaceous fish, “whose strong and thick shells are entire and of a piece, because those which are joined, as the lobsters, are crustaceous.” ”

“ First, The entire shell, (Pl. 35,) is one continuous arch, coiled spirally around itself in such a manner, that the base of the outer whorls rests upon the crown of the inner whorls, and thus the keel or back is calculated to resist pressure, in the same manner as the shell of a common hen's egg resists great force if applied in the direction of its longitudinal diameter. ”

“ Shell, of some kind or other, is common to the whole order of testacea, but it would be absurd to define the vis vitæ of testaceous animals as existing in the shell, though we know it to be the constant accompaniment, and have every reason to believe the constant effect, of the specific life that acts in those animals. ”

“ Every one who has searched a few rock pools will have seen the familiar Hermits, and will probably have been interested in their varied antics. First you observe the shell of a mollusc—a Trochus, Periwinkle, or a Whelk—travelling at an abnormal rate for a member of its class. You approach closely to make an inquiry into the matter, when the motion suddenly ceases, and the shell instantly drops into position with its mouth close to the surface below. ”

“ Alone I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand:
I stooped, and wrote upon the sand
My name—the year—the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast:
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away. ”

“ To choose a shell from the shore, rubbed and made smooth by the tossing of the waves; to take hold of the shell in a horizontal position with the fingers; to whirl it along sloping and as low down as possible upon the waves, that when thrown it may either skim the back of the wave, or may swim as it glides along with a smooth impulse, or may spring up as it cleaves the top of the waves, and rise as if lifted up with repeated springs. That boy claimed to be conqueror whose shell both went out furthest, and leaped up most frequently. ”

“ Nay, further, that some parts of the same Shell may be fill'd in one place, and some other caverns in another, and others in a third, or a fourth, or a fifth place, for so many differing substances have I found in one of these petrify'd Shells, and perhaps all these differing from the encompassing earth or stone ”

“ Shell. Turriculated, subfusiform and oval; spire always pointed at the summit; aperture small, triangular, widest anteriorly where it is strongly emarginated; external edge trenchant, nearly straight, always longer than the columella, which is formed by a very thin callosity, and marked with oblique parallel folds, the anterior of which are the shortest; no operculum. Inhabits the Chinese seas. Eighty species. ”

“ Shell. Thick, solid, smooth, oval, elongated, subcylindrical; the whorls of the spire very small, and separated by a canal; aperture long and narrow, the columellar edge dilated anteriorly by a 151band striated obliquely in all its length. Found in the Australian and Equatorial seas. Only one species has been found in America. Sixty-three species. Six fossil. ”

“ This you may easily prove by applying a little acid to a shell, and you will find that an effervescence takes place.
"The animals that inhabit shells are bloodless, without bones, but provided with a heart, lungs, and mouth, together with other organs needful to their conformation.
"Testaceous animals have the power of enlarging their habitations; they can also repair any injury that may occur to them.
"Many kinds of shell-fish are made use of by man, and form a valuable article of food, such as oysters, cockles, muscles, scallops. The whelk is also used, and a species of murex. ”

“ The one-celled animal in its shell is, however, no longer a microscopic grain. It sometimes forms wonderful shells, an inch or more in diameter, in which as many as a thousand chambers succeed each other, in spiral order, from the centre. ”

“ In shells, as in all the works of the Almighty Creator, we may observe an infinite variety of form, and if they do not all strike us as alike graceful, yet in each, however plain and simple, there is some peculiar beauty, whether it be the mere hollow cup, or the simple tube, the smooth or twisted cone, the slender spire, the convoluted oval, or half circle, ribbed or spiked, with a lip curving out like the leaf of a water lily, or a narrow rim, like that of a golden chalice ”