H05 



I X T R O D U C T I X . 



WHAT AEE SHELLS? 



De. Jonxsox gives us no less tiian eight different meanings for 

 the Mord Shell. Fii-st, he calls it 'The hard covering of any- 

 thing ; the external crust,' Second, 'The covering of a testaceous 

 or crastaceous animal.' And here ^e may stop, for this is just 

 the signification which has to do \^ith our subject; so let us turn 

 the sentence inside out, and see what we can make of it. ^Ve 

 all know what a covering is — an outer coat, a case, a protection 

 from injury, a husk, a crust, a — in short, a shell, — sci/ll, or need, 

 as our Saxon forefathers called it; schale, as the Germans now 

 term it. ]S^o Latin nor Greek here, but the good old Saxon 

 tongue, somewhat rough and rugged, perhaps, but stout and sturdy, 

 and honest and serviceable; a kind of language to stand wear and 

 tear, hke a pair of hob-nailed shoes, with little pohsh, but useful, 

 yes, very useful! Vrell, we have got so far, now comes a hard 

 word — Tes-ta-ce-ous, wliat can it mean? It is pronounced ies-ta- 

 shus, comes from the Latin Usiaceus — having a Shell, and means 

 consisting of, or composed of shells; so we find that a ie.siucean 

 is a shell-fish, and Usiace<jlocjji/ is the science of shells. Johnson's 

 second meaning of the word UstaceuiDi is 'Having continuous, not 

 jointed shells, opposed to crustaceous.' So we find that some 

 naturalists call those testaceous fish, ''whose strong and thick shells 

 are entire and of a piece, because those which are joined, aij ihe 

 lobsters, are crustaceous." 



Now some of the true testacean 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 shaU explain presently 

 wherein the difference consists between them, and the Ckus-ta-ce- 

 ous, or, as vre pronounce it, krus-ia-.shus, fish consists. Here is 

 another long word, it comes from the Latin crusta, a word of 

 many meanings, all having reference to an outer coat or covering. 

 Islj readers know all about pie-crust, and have perhaps heard a 



