8 THE HALL OF SHELLS. 
shells. Guess [ve found you some new ac- 
quaintances. Just look at that beauty—pink 
as a flower! The new minister was down on 
the beach. He said that shell was a great tray- 
eler and had come from the tropic seas. 
“Undine, that minister knew me! Said he 
saw me at church. I didn’t s’pose ministers 
ever saw boys. Our other minister never did. 
I wouldn’t wonder if Dr. McLean—that’s the 
new minister’s name—knew “inost as much as 
Cousin Ellen does about the ocean and its in- 
habitants. He showed me where to look to 
find the mouth and stomach of a starfish; they 
are right handy together, I tell you! He says 
starfish are very fond of oysters. You wouldn’t 
s’pose they could open an oyster shell, would 
you? But they can; they just put that queer 
mouth of theirs close to the closed edge of the 
oyster shell and inject a bitter liquid into the 
shell; Mr. Oyster don’t like the dose and opens 
his valves, in walks the starfish and eats ‘oys- 
ter on the half shell’ without as much as a 
thank you! Dr. McLean says these starfish 
have a cousin that grows on a long stem like a 
flower. 
“See all these rainbow colors,” he con- 
tinued, displaying a brilliant Halotis. “ Dr. 
McLean says the animal that lived in this shell 
