41 



BIVALVES. 



AcEPHALors MoLLUsKS, with Bivalve Shells, is the name 

 given by modern naturalists to the class of animals of which 

 we have now to speak; the only one of these terras which 

 will require explanation is the first; it comes from the Greek, 

 and means headless, so an Acephalan is a molluscous animal 

 without a head, as 



THE OYSTER, 



Which may be considered as the King of Bivalves; his palace, 

 to be sure, is somewhat rough and rugged outside, but within, 

 its walls are smooth and polished, lustrous and iridescent, and 

 altogether beautiful; of a nacrous or pearly appearance, now 

 flushing into a rose tint, now fading into pure white, and 

 adorned sometimes with goodly pearls of price; truly this 

 monarch of the Conchif&rs has a habitation worthy of a prince, 

 wherein he lives in right royal state. Our readers may smile 

 perhaps at the idea of the solitary Oyster doing this, down 

 there on his mud bank or rocky anchorage ground, shut up 

 in his dirty-looking shells, and holding, as it seems, commune 

 with no one, not even his lellow mollusks; how can he be 

 said to live in royal state, or indeed any state at all, except 

 in a most weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable one? And this 

 only shews how erroneously those often judge who do so hastily, 

 and from first appearances. 



If we take a peep through a microscope, under the direc- 

 tion of a naturalist named llymer Jones, we shall see that 

 ''the shell of an Oyster is a world occupied by an innumer- 

 able quantity of animals, compared to which the Oyster itself 

 is a colossus. The liquid enclosed between the shell of the 

 Oyster contains a multitude of embryos, covered with trans- 

 parent scales, which swim with ease; a hundred and twenty 

 of these embryos, placed side by side, would make an inch 

 in breadth. This liquid contains besides, a great variety of 

 animalculoe, five hundred times less in size, which give out 

 a phosphoric light. Yet these are not the only inhabitants of 

 this dwelling — thei^e are also three distinct species of worms." 



