2 Beautiful Shells. 
sturdy, and honest and serviceable; a kind of lan- 
guage to stand wear and tear, like a pair of hob- 
nailed shoes, with little polish, but useful, yes, very 
useful! Well, we have got so far, now comes a 
hard word—Tazs-tTa-cz-ous, what can it mean? It 
is pronounced tes-ta-shus, comes from the Latin 
testaceus—having a shell, and means consisting of, 
or composed of shells; so we find that a testacean 
is a Shell-fish, and testaceology is the science of 
shells. Johnson’s second meaning of the word tes- 
taceous is *‘ Having continuous, not jointed shells, 
opposed to crustaceous.” So we find that some 
naturalists call those testaceous fish, ‘‘ whose strong 
and thick shells are entire and of a piece, because 
those which are joined, as the lobsters, are crus- 
taceous.” 
Now some of the true testaceans have shells in 
more than one or two pieces, and therefore this last 
explanation of the term is rather calculated to 
mislead a learner; but we shall explain presently 
wherein the difference consists between them, and 
the Crus-Ta-cEOUS, or, aS we pronounce it, krus-ta- 
shus, fish consists. Here is another long word, it 
comes from the Latin crusta, a word of many mean- 
ings, all having reference to an outer coat or 
covering. My readers know all about pie-crust, 
