MUI.TIVALVES. 3f5 



and rounded towards the extremity. It is a frequent inhabitant of 

 the European coasts ; and in some places, as about the coasts of 

 Sicily and Italy, the silken tufts are often collected, and spun into 

 various articles of dress, as gloves in particular; the silk requiring 

 no dye, but retaining its native colour, which is an elegant, glossy, 

 yellowish brown. Specimens of this kind of silk are generally to 

 be seen in most of our museums. Neither is this faculty of fasten- 

 ing, or anchoring by means of silken 6bres, confined to the genus 

 pinna, but takes place, as we have already seen, in the genus my- 

 tilus, and probably m some of the rest. 



[Skaw. 



The Multivalves, or shell-worms, whose shell consists of 

 three or more than three parts. And of these there are but three 

 described kinds ; the chiton, lepas, and phloas ; the last of which 

 is worthy of notice on various accounts ; the shell is bivalve, with 

 several shallow differently shaped accessory shells at the hinge ; 

 hinges recurved, united by a cartilage ; in the inside beneath the 

 binge is an incurved tooth. The inhabitants of this genus perforate 

 clay, spongy stones, and wood, while in their younger state ; aud as 

 they increase in size, enlarge their habitation within, and thus be- 

 come imprisoned : they contain a phosphorous liquor of great bril- 

 liancy in the dark, and which illuminates whatever it touches or 

 happens to fall upon. 



It is equally extraordinary by what means this curious worm is able 

 to burrow and work its way in the midst of massy stones, as the nature 

 of the phosphorous liffht which it so copiously secretes. The organ 

 by which it appears to work is a fleshy substance, placed near the 

 lower extremity of the shell, of the hape of a lozenge, and con- 

 siderably large in proportion to the size of the animal j it is by per- 

 severance alone, therefore, and by great length of time, that it is 

 able to scoop out an augmentation to the cavity it inhabits. The 

 minute opening by which the worm, when very small, insinuated 

 itself into the interior of the substance it inhabits, is generally to be 

 traced ; and at once subverts the absurd opinion of those who have 

 asserted that the phloas is at first hatched in these holes. 



The light emitted is of a very peculiar kind. Its existence ha 

 been long known, for it is noticed by Pliny, who observes that it 

 shines in the mouth of the person who eats it, and makes him lumi~ 



2 B4 



