How to Know Shells 



in pearls. Mother-of-pearl is the lining of shells. Pearl buttons 

 are cut from shells of the fresh-water clams. Cameos are cut 

 from conchs and helmet shells. Sepia ink and the far-famed 

 Tyrian dyes are molluscan secretions. Royal robes were woven 

 of the threads by which the little pen shell clings to its rocky 

 abode. A little cowrie of handy size and shape is the "money 

 shell" of African tribes, the currency used in all traffic. But 

 these interesting mollusks we can only read about. There are 

 others closer by. 



Go with me down to the seashore when the tide is out. It 

 takes time to get the eyes and the mind focused upon what one 

 is looking at. The beach is scattered with the dead shells of its 

 own inhabitants. Between the limits of the high and low tides 

 is a zone of life that follows in and out the curves and angles of 

 the crumbling sea wall. In the tide pools, under the smooth 

 sand, on rocks, under spreading green seaweed, live the creatures 

 of the seashore. They are retiring in disposition. Very naturally 

 they do not wave us a welcome. 



How quickly a child throws away a lapful of wave-worn 

 shells to watch the doings of a live one ! Do you see that small jet 

 of water spouting upward? The spade thrust deftly under turns 

 out a slim razor clam. Watch or he will dive into the sand before 

 you can get him into the pail of sea water. Fill it half full of 

 sand and how quickly he is out of sight. 



What is that ridge on the smooth sand? The boy explores 

 it with his bare toe, and turns out a surprised moon shell. Watch 

 the disturbed creature draw his great foot into the stout shell, 

 and shut the world out with the horny door. 



Those familiar "sand collars," so fragile when they are dry, 

 turn out to be the egg-carrier of the moon shell. And the poor 

 clams whose shells are bored with neat round holes near the beaks 

 are victims of the moon shell's voracious appetite. It is easy to 

 prove this by putting the two together alive in the pail and leaving 

 them over night. Sometimes a shell scampers clumsily over the 

 sand instead of sedately plodding along just under the surface. 

 It tumbles over, and reveals a sheaf of jointed arms at the opening. 

 The original owner has been superseded by that inveterate house- 

 hunter, the hermit crab. 



There is positively no end to the new discoveries one makes 

 when the eyes are once open to the strange doings of the shore- 



5 



