542 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



demands. Probably fair-sized colonies on two contiguous shells 

 may not require many days in the growing season to unite in 

 those shelly knots that may be broken but can never be untied. 



The Shops and Shells. 



Oysters, " jingles/' and " deckers " * set on the shell and grow and 

 impede its progress until it wearies of life and dies. 



While on the subject of the shells of this animal it may be 

 worthy to note that in addition to their acrobatic efforts to regain 

 the water when left on shore by the tide, some of the old writers 

 credited them with the sailing powers of the nautilus or " Por- 

 tuguese man-of-war," and have asserted that, " by flapping their 

 valves with a very quick motion, they can rise from their beds 

 in the deep and navigate the surface, having one shell raised 

 and so disposed as to catch the breeze in its concavity, while the 

 other serves as a boat." We know that they can move below the 

 surface, but must draw the line there. 



In the month of May, 1895, 1 found eggs of the scallop well 

 developed in the ovaries of the animal and apparently ripe, as 

 they were extruded with slight pressure, but found no ripe males 

 at the time, and therefore failed to impregnate the eggs. They 

 were transparent and measured eighty to the centimetre, or over 



* Jingles and deckers are fishermen's names for Anomia glabra and Crepidula fornicata, 

 which, like the oyster, attach to shells, stones, etc. 



