404 NEAV GENUS AND SOME NEW SPECIES 



works of nature, however minute or unimportant to the pas- 

 ser by, c^n be examined without creating in the student of 

 nature the utmost wonder and astonishment. 



In this class of animals nature seems not to have worked 

 with the hand of a stepmother ; she put them out of her lap 

 after having lavished her bounties upon them in the utmost 

 profusion. All the tints and combinations of tlie colours of 

 the rainbow are called to adorn their coverings ; and in the 

 form of the shells we have almost all the figures that the 

 science of geometry can present. Who can watch the com- 

 mon snail of our woods, and see him commence at a mere 

 point, from which he builds his covering by a secretion from 

 his own body and turns it with the most mathematical exact- 

 ness, without exclaiming. Thou art indeed a great geometri- 

 cian ! and when he comes to finish his arched entrance, graced 

 with a curvation pure and as white as marble, who can 

 refuse to acknowledge him an accomplished architect ? 



In viewing the covering of this class of animals, I consider 

 it as in some measure analogous to the skeleton in the 

 vertebral animals. The muscular attachments, of which 

 there are many, to the two valves of the conchifera, may be 

 viewed as the attachments of the muscles of the animal frame 

 to the bones, by which we are enabled to enjoy locomotion. 

 The ligament, which firmly connects, exteriorly, the two 

 valves, may be assimilated to those ligaments whose almost 

 exclusive service is to connect some of the important bones 

 of the human skeleton. 



Is it reasonable to consider the valves as merely a habitation 

 for the animal ? Are they not always acting a more distin- 

 guished part? The ligament, beautifully formed of a com- 

 bined .horny and fibrous substance, is ever in action while the 

 animal lives, and this action is counterbalanced by the con- 

 traction of the muscles attached to the interior of the valves. 

 The epidermis too has its duty to perform in protecting from 

 decomposition the calcareous matter of the shell. It is com- 

 posed of a thin horny substance — somewhat like that of the 

 exterior part of the ligament. The prolongation of the epi- 



