14 Beautiful Shells. 
grocers, and the like; and in the country the dairy- 
maid, with the larger kinds of the same shell, skims 
her milk, and slices her butter ; while sometimes by 
the poor people of both towns and villages, the 
deeper specimens are converted into oil-lamps. One 
very important use, my young readers will under- 
stand, when I speak of a ragged urchin, who 
shouts to every passer-by— Please remember the 
grotto!” 
In ancient times, we are told, the people of 
Athens recorded their votes on public occasions, by 
marks upon a shell, thus Pope says— 
“He whom ungrateful Athens would expel, 
At all times just, but when he signed the shell ;” 
in allusion to this custom, of which we are re- 
minded by such English words as Attestation, a 
certifying, a bearing witness; Testify, to give 
evidence; Testament, a will, or written disposal of 
property, etc. ; all having their origin, it appears, in 
the Latin testa—a shell. In ancient poetry, we find 
the word Testudo used to signify a musical instru- 
ment, also called a lyre or lute; which instrument, 
according to tradition, was first made by passing 
strings, and straining them tightly, over the shell 
of a tortoise. So the poet Dryden, describing 
