* 
16 ‘RAISED,’ WHERE IT LIVES. 
curved bristles, like bundles of minute fishhooks, 
being quietly permitted to creep under the shell, 
and force its way by crawling round and round the 
foot, by a system of hook-and-drag. In no other 
way, however, could it edge in, without worrying 
and enraging the fissurella beyond all power of 
endurance—ordinary pressure being only needed 
to squeeze the intruder flat as a pancake. By 
gently tickling it with a bit of seaweed under 
the shell, one would say that patience was a 
virtue but little cultivated by the fissurella; the 
slightest touch, and down goes the shell with a 
force that cuts the weed in two like scissors. 
What chance would a soft-bodied worm stand? 
Not the slightest. The parasite, like Topsy, was 
‘raised’ where it lives. 
What part a worm, doomed, as far as we know, 
to pass its whole life captive in the shell of a 
molluse, plays on Nature’s wide stage,is a problem 
beyond human ken, We know nothing was created 
in vain—that even the tiny diatom has its use; 
and this insignificant annelide serves a purpose 
and fulfils a destiny, in the endless maze of life, as 
important as the lordly lion, or even man himself. 
It may not be generally known that the Den- 
talium, or Money-shell, is used as an article of cur- 
rency by the native tribes of North-west America. 
