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 — Tes-ta-ce-ous, what can it mean ? It 

 is pronounced ies-ta-sliuSy comes from the Latia 

 tesiaceus — having a shell, and means consisting of, 

 or composed of shells ; so we find that a testacean 

 is a shell-fish, and tcstaccology is the science of 

 shells. Johnson's second meaning of the word tes- 

 taceous is " Having continuous, not jointed shells, 

 opposed to crustaceous/' So w^e find that some 

 naturalists call those testaceous fish, '' whose strong- 

 and thick shells are entire and of a piece, because 

 those w^hich 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 CEUS-TA-CEors, or, as we pronounce it, Icrus-ta- 

 sJiKSj 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. 



