color spreading in different directions the sands of Lake Michigan and scooped 



from a common center. At Newport, up the little grains with the broken half 



Rhode Island, the writer has gathered of a clam shell ? Or who, wading in the 



many thousand specimens of a beautiful muddy water of Lake Calumet, has not 



little Tellen (Tellina tenera), whose shell wondered what the curious little hollow, 



measures scarcely half an inch in diame- fringed objects were which protruded 



ter and is tinted a lovely pink or pinkish from the surface of the mud ? These lat- 



white. The siphons of this family are ter were the siphons of the clam and if 



very long and are separated, the upper you were to dig under them a little way 



one being half or three-quarters as long you would find the beautiful green-rayed 



as the lower one, and the foot is rather shell of a river mussel. These are no less 



long and pointed, admirably adapted for interesting than the marine shells already 



burrowing. The long siphons enable the described and in beauty of ornamentation 



animal to bury itself to quite a depth be- they frequently excel many of their salt- 



neath the surface of the sand. water relatives. Such excrescences as 



Closely related to the Tellinidae is the knobs, spines and rib-like undulations are 

 Psammobiidae, a characteristic form of common, while the colors of the interior 

 which (Psammobia rubroradiata) is thus range from pure silvery white through 

 spoken of by Prof. Josiah Keep, in his in- orange, pink and salmon to dark purple, 

 teresting little book, "West Coast Shells :" and the rich, pearly iridescence rivals that 

 "But I wanted to see more of him, so I of any of the marine shells. In many 

 took a large jar, filled it half full of beach parts of the West mussels are collected by 

 sand, added as much sea-water as it men in search of pearls, which are gen- 

 would hold, and plunged my prize into erally of an inferior quality, and thou- 

 the same. He rested quietly for a few sands of shells are used annually in the 

 minutes, and then began to open his shell manufacture of pearl buttons, 

 and cautiously put out his two siphons. One of the most familiar objects to the 

 Soon afterward, from between the edges seaside visitor is the huge banks of sea- 

 of his shells, came his big, white, spade- mussels (Mytilus) which line the shore 

 shaped foot. He drove it down into the at low water. The shells are generally 

 sand, curved it a little to one side, gave dark-colored, our common mussel (Myti- 

 a vigorous pull, and lo ! his shell followed, lus edulis) being frequently jet black, and 

 though just why I could not clearly under- are more or less wedge-shaped in form, 

 stand. Though the jar was large he They attach themselves to mud banks and 

 reached the bottom before his shell was shore vegetation by a strong byssus made 

 vjholly covered with sand, and had to up of stout, more or less silky threads, 

 content himself with a half-above-ground The mussels are of great value econom- 

 tenement." ically, thousands of bushels of the edible 



"Next morning his siphons were mussel (Mytilus edulis) being consumed 



stretched out some six inches in length, annually in Europe. They are also used 



* * I never thought before that as bait, and millions of the mussels are 



there was any particular beauty to the thus used every year. Although consid- 



siphons of a clam, but for this red-lined ered a delicacy in parts of Great Britain 



one my opinions quickly changed. Im- and Europe, it has not yet been adopted 



agine two tubes made of the finest pink as an article of diet in this country, the 



and white silk, stretched over delicate clam and quahaug taking its place, 



hoops arranged at regular intervals ; then The family Aviculidae, comprising the 



think of them as endowed with life, and wing-shells or pearl oysters, is of great 



waving with a graceful motion through interest, both scientifically and economic- 



the water, and^ you will have a faint idea ally. At the present time there are a lit- 



of their exquisite texture and elegant ap- tie over one hundred species living, but 



pearance." the family has been known from early 



To those readers who live in the West, geological times and over a thousand 



away from the ocean, the Unio, or fresh- species have been found in the rocks, 



water mussel, is more or less familiar. The pearl-oyster (Melleagrina margariti- 



What child in Chicago has not played on fera) is the most important member of 



30 



