, 1891-05-06

Shell. and manufacture from it a lame for our
science, we shall find it to include a very in
oongruous medley of objects-from nutshells
and egg-shells, up perhaps, to the Hard and
Soft Shell Baptists that have been such COM
mon. though not particularly beautiful objects,
on our sea shore lately.
Let us return then to our first love, only
.skipulating that she shall not embrace any
thing foreign to the lines of this lecture. Are
we not constantly in the habit of using words
to which meanings have come to be attached
of greater or less or even totally different sig
nifcations to their derivatives. Shells, when
not properly cured, will smell as sweet by any
other name.
We adopt then the word Concholoey and
define it as the Science which treats Of the
hard portions of Molluscous animals.
This excludes the ~siliceous shells Of Poly
~cystina, the cretaceous envelopes of the Fora
minifera, and the bivalye shells of the Diatoms.
By way of explanation of these names, l refer
you to these pictures. Here are two species of
Polycystina, the fossil animalcules of which
some of the rocks in Barbados are composed.
Under mighty showers of such like minute
shells Pompeii was buried. Here are portraits
of the two chief types of the Foraminifera.
OF microscopic shells like theses the magnif-
cent city Of Paris is built. These are really
Infusorial Animalcules, bnt they initiate
wANA "a AAG4AS ASO0AoO1 wax
Compare them with this Planorbis tumidus
from Bayfords, or this Spirula Peronii from
Canaree Bay, and this Mira granulosa
also from Conaree. And here are pictures Of
bivalve shells of two microscopic vegetables. A
vegetable enclosed in a pair of shells like an
oyster and able to move itself about is one Of the
most Wonderlandish sights that even the mi
croscope can shew Us. But the species of these
Diatoms are innumerable and abound in pools
and bitches everywhere.
Our definition also passes by the shelly
tubes of the little Serpulae which are common
on the rocks along our coasts. The tube is
exactly, like that of a small Vermetus, which
is q veritable mollusc but the Serpula belongs
to the sub-kingdom of the Articulata. 1t is
one of the prettiest objects for a West Indian
Aquarium. It's mouth is fringed with red,
yellow, or blue tentacles, and the little creature
looks, as it protrudes its hea4 from its shelly
case, like q fairy flower of exquisite beauty and
most vivid colouring. Here is a group Of
Vermetus tubes that came, I think, from Bar
bados. They are the unwound or the not yet
wound up spiral whorls, according to the view
you may take of the evolutionary stage of
their development, of the ordinary molluscous
univalve. But their appearance is so faithfully
copied by the pseudo-shells of the Serpula
that you may obtain an accurate idea of the lat
ter by simply reducing these tubes to about a
sixth of their size.
The multivalve shells of the Cirrhipedes
(barnacles and ea-acorns) have a doubtful
right to a place on the shelves of the Concholo-
gIst. In some books they are classed among
the Articulata, and in others they constitute an
order of the Mollusca. A few species ofthe Cir
rhipoda arc found on our rocks or adherent to
bits of floating wood. 1t is amusing to watch
with a magnifying glass the Balanus casting
his net like a sprat-isherman. 1t is to catch
.snimalcules, so that it is not easy to Judge of
the results but his unceasing efforts deserve
success. Indeed SO rapid and persistent are his
throws, that the inference is he does not take
more than one or two at a haul. The old
naturalists believed that Barnacles turned into
geese. Tn commonest species, the Pentalasma
anatifera, derives it's specific name from this
surprising fable. This was good indubitable
science, which none but a born fool would ques-
:tinn. three hundred years ago. How much of the
Wanted science of the braggart Nineteenth
Century will seem equally absurd to the people
OF three hundred years to come, should old
mother earth not yet have burst into hundreds
or myriads of Asteroids like her poor brother
the planet missing between Mar and Jupiter,
or shrunk into a cold and bare rock ard become
an humble satellite of the Sun, himself then
reduced to terrestrial gravity and proper
tions.
The Dentalium elephants Tooth is another