THE OLDEST NOBLE OF THEM ALL. 



745 



much older nobility than any that tbey had brought forward of one 

 that was present at the creation of the world. The crown-prince, inti- 

 mating that my mere assertion could not carry the day, invited me to 

 produce a living shoot of that old stock. I told him that I would do so 

 if I were given time, and he granted me as long an indulgence as I 

 desired. Some years had passed since my promise was made ; but now 

 I desired to fulfill it, and had come to this place to get the living 

 shoots of the oldest family on the earth. What I had asserted was 

 the simple truth. The ancestors of these shells have lived in the sea 

 ever since there was a sea, " and now I shall take these living muscles 

 to the king and tell him that I have won the bet." 



Let us look now at the little company which is collected here on a 

 stone, and whose individual members are found in the Mediterranean 

 Sea. The largest of the specimens on the right side of the drawing, 



Fig. 1. Membeks op tde Oldest Family. 



which has grown by a short stalk to a small coral-stem, represents a 

 smooth shell, of glassy clearness, and hard as glass. Linnaeus was ac- 

 quainted with it, and called it Terebratula vitrea, or the glassy tere- 

 bratula. Another much smaller kind, whose white, three-cornered 

 shells are neatly furrowed in the direction of their length, is sup- 

 posed to have a kind of resemblance which I have never been able to 

 find, with a snake's head, and is named in the classification 2erebratu- 

 lina caput serpentis. Two specimens can be seen in the drawing, one 

 in the right-hand lower corner of the stone, on the surface ; the other 

 on top near the middle, in profile. On the Sardinian coast this species 

 wears a yellowish-green coat, which consists of a slime sticking fast 

 to the shell with sand-grains. I thought at first that I had discovered 

 a new species, and would be able to perpetuate my name in the zoo- 

 logical registers till the end of science, by giving it to this creature, 

 when my zeal unluckily prompted me to take hold of the soft coat 

 with a pincers. The tool drew off the envelope and under it shone 

 the ivory-white shell. Besides these two species belonging to the 



