LECTURES. 49 



emphasis upon that of the munera, which eat green 

 food and yet had a red shell. It is with such inform- 

 ation as has been given above that we fill our note 

 books and our heads, we cannot take down all that 

 he tells us, much as we would like to do so; there 

 might be a few favored individuals present to whom 

 the mysteries of shorthand or takegraphy would re- 

 ward their possessors with all the words and ideas of 

 our Professor; but we, an editorial we, applying to 

 nearly everyone of us in the room, are not so far ad- 

 vanced in this peculiar branch of education but that 

 our notes embrace but a small part of the hour's dis- 

 course, no matter how diligently we may struggle 

 with pen and pencil and abbreviated English. You 

 will doubtless smile as you read a page of my origin- 

 al notes corrected simply as to its language: 



"There is no muscular movement in the opening 

 of the valves of a bivalve shell, but simply in its 

 closing; in the one case the ligaments, contracting, 

 push the shell open, in the other it pulls it from the 

 inside. Lines of growth upon a shell indicate its 

 age. The muscles of the margin of a bivalve shell 

 are to enable the animal to draw in its mantle. To 

 preserve molluscs, first kill the animals by immersing 

 salt-water species in fresh water and vice versa, and 

 then place in alcohol. In dissecting such animals, 

 dissect under water, or water in which a small quan- 

 tity only of alcohol has been put; if intervals occur 

 during the work, replace the specimen in alcohol. 

 What is ciliary motion? Ciliary motion ten foot 

 square would exert a force equal to ten tons. It is 

 ciliary motion that induces a current, and brings the 

 food within reach of the palpi (or small feelers, as 

 they are sometimes called), which act freely at a 

 short distance only from the mouth; these feelers se- 

 cure the food, mould it into pellets, and convey it to 

 the mouth." 



At this point, in one of our lectures, sometime yet 

 before the close of the hour, one of the men brought 

 in a huge skate fish and lay it upon our table. All 



