41 



BIVALVES. 



Acephalous Molli'sks, with Bivalve Shells, is the Darne 

 given by modern naturalists to the class of animals of which 

 we have now to speak; the only one of these terms 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, 



"WTiich 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, noAV fading into pure white, and 

 adorned sometimes with goodly pearls of price; truly this 

 monarch of the Conchifers has a habitation worthy of a prince, 

 Avherein 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 fellow mollusks; how^ can he be 

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

 in a most w^eary, stale, fiat, and unprofitable one? And this 

 only shows how erroneously those often judge wlio do so hastily, 

 and from first appearances. 



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

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

 ''the shell of an Oyster is a w^orld 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 

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

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

 this dwelling — there are also three distinct species of worms." 



