New Britain herald., 1916-07-28

animal matter called the "epidermiS' or periOstracum, sometimes thin and transparent, at others thick ans opaque. It is thick and olive colOred in all fresh water shells and in many arctic sea shells (e. g. cyprina and artarte). The colors of the land-shells often depend on 1t, sometimes it is silky Gas in helix sericea), or fringed with hairs Gas in trichotropis), in the whelk and some species of triton and conus it is thick and rough, like coarse cloth, and in some mondiolas it is drawn out into long beardlike flaments. In the cowry and other mollusks with large mantle Iobes the epidermis is more or less covered up by an additional layer of shell deposited externally.
 The epidermis has life but not sen- satiOn, and it protects the shell against the influence of the weather and chemical agents, it soon fades or is destroyed after the death of the ani- nal in situations where, while living, it would have undergone no change.
 Who would imagine a cutie fish or an octopus had any connection with the helpless oyster or timid peri Winkle? Yet so it is, only while the oyster is one of the lower and feebler forms, the cuttle-fish, the octopus, the argOnaut, and the nautilus, are mOn- archs of the mOllusla, and stand as undoubtedly at the head of one great plan of life, as the ants do at the head of insects, or man at the head of the Vertebrates.
 Shells are said to be external when the animal is contained in them, and internal when they are concealed in the mantle as in the cephalopods. The internal shells support the flesh, fulfilling the office of skeleton.
 The home so carefully prepared IS often shared by some less fortunate creature. The oyster-crab so well known, finds shelter within the oy- ster shell, and many other delicate forms of life seek shelter in various shells. Aristotle relates that the pin- na keeps a guard to watch for her; this he calls pinnophylx, (pinna- guardian), and describes as a little fish with claws like a crab. To this description the Greek poet Oppianus was indebted, when he says:
 'The pima and the crab together
 dwell,
 For mutual succor, in one common
 
 They both to gain a livelihood com
 bine,
 That takes the prey, when this has
 given sign,
 From hence this crab, above his fel-
 lows famed,
 By ancient Greeks was pinnotores
 named"
 (Similar species infest the mussels on 0f ho P,,iti tich
 Old shells of nassa, buccinium, natica, lttorina, and other spiral shells are carefully selected by the hermit-crab. He is truly the home less gamin of the shore, "being sent into this breathing world," as Rich ard of Gloucester says, "scarce half l made up." In other words, while portion of his body has a shelly cov- ering, the rest has no protection, and l the first work of his life is to find. seize, hold and defend some empty shell in which he may protect him. self from the hungry sea animals about him.
 Most spiral shells have a horny or calcareous disk Or door, called oper- culum, which is fixed to the posterior part of the foot, and which closes the entrance of the shell, when the anil ] nal retires into it. This operculum is convex on one side and flat on | the other and, when drawn in by the animal shuts the opening of it's shell like valve, perfectly air and water tight but for this provision of a door of stony hardness, the little helpless mollusk would be destroyed by the ] thousands of hungry mouths that sur round him in his ocean home.