MOLLUSCA. 217 



CHAPTER III. 



ON MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS AS OBJECTS OF UTILITY. 



Although molluscous bodies furnish many articles of value 

 to man, scarcely any naturalist has taken the trouble to 

 enumerate the different purposes to which they have been 

 applied, or to point out in what manner their usefulness 

 might be encreased. To the savage, shells furnish some 

 of his most important instruments. They often answer all 

 the purposes of a knife, and are extensively employed as a 

 substitute for iron : with pieces of the more solid bivalves 

 he points his arrows, and forms his fish-hooks. Even when 

 farther advanced in civilization, the canaliculated univalves 

 sometimes constitute the rustic lamp, while the larger scal- 

 lops are employed by the dairy-maid to skim her milk and 

 to slice her butter. From the mother-of-pearl shell many 

 useful and ornamental articles are fabricated ; and calcined 

 shells were formerly esteemed by physicians as absorbents ; 

 and are still regarded by the farmer as furnishing a valua- 

 ble manure. 



Shells thus appear to be of some importance in the arts 

 of life ; but the animals contained in these shells are of far 

 greater value. As articles of food, shell-fish are extensively 

 employed by the poor, and even hold a conspicuous place 



