64 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



practical, aesthetic, and imaginative. This is surely 

 true of shells. Throughout the greater part of the 

 world simple peoples have used various shellfish 

 (an abhorrent word to the zoologist) for food; and 

 this, of course, continues, whether in oysters, which 

 Huxley likened to "gustatory flashes of summer 

 lightning," or, at the other pole of expenditure, in 

 winkles, which require no apology. And apart from 

 edibility and the use of mollusks as bait, many shells 

 have proved of practical service to man as instru- 

 ments or parts of instruments. Secondly, the 

 decorative or emotion-exciting value of shells has 

 been appreciated all over the world, the waist- 

 band of cowries and the necklace of pearls having 

 the same merit of great beauty, enhanced in both 

 cases, no doubt, by monetary and other associations. 

 And, thirdly, it seems quite certain that infectious 

 imaginative suggestions, perhaps rather fanciful 

 and arbitrary to start with, have given certain shells 

 psychological value as symbols, charms, and 

 amulets. We venture to think that some anthro- 

 pologists who have emphasized the symbolism of 

 certain shells, notably cowries, have tended to 

 underestimate the associated practical and sensory 

 values. We fancy that the wide diffusion of a 

 recognition of the symbolic significance of certain 

 shells was partly due to their correlated beauty and 

 usefulness. In any case, the three factors must have 

 co-operated, as some examples will show. 



One of the many undated human inventions was 

 that of the shell-trumpet. It may have been 



