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The shrimp is a crustacean with a long body and a substantial 

 tail by which it is able to dart very swiftly through the water. 

 The acorn shell or barnacle may be found almost everywhere. It 

 differs from the true barnacle (which was once connected with a 

 most absurd superstition) in not having a stalk, so that the body is 

 all enclosed in the little shell. This shell is composed ot several 

 pieces and is firmly fastened to the rock. The little animal is 

 called a cirrhopod, because its feet are so beautifully cut in feathery 

 fashion. 



Some of my readers will be wondering why not a word has been 

 said about shells and the animals that live in them, The reason is 

 that, working upwards, we have only just reached the soft-bodied 

 animals or, as naturalists call them, the Mollusca. They rank first 

 amongst invertebrate animals, the highest amongst them being the 

 cuttle-fish and its allies. A short time since a cuttle-fish was 

 brought up in a mackerel net at Sandgate, and the writer has seen 

 a living octopus that had found its way to our rocks. Just fancy 

 what a scare there would be if these delightful creatures were to 

 become " common objects of our coast." Animals that have feet 

 growing out of their heads, as these have, are not very likely to- 

 win favour, but, when we come to the suckers, it is time to talk 

 about something else. Please notice a very, very common washed- 

 out looking thing, often called a sea weed, but correctly Flustra, 

 one of the sea-mosses or sea-mats. It is a skeleton, a thing that was the 

 abode of innumerable tiny animals now classed as molluscoida. 

 They rank much higher than the little hydra-like animal, and are 

 akin to the proper moUuscoida. An examination with a magnifier 

 will show us that »he surface of the flustra is not smooth, but is 

 covered with little holes in which the animal lives. About 150 

 years ago, a great botanist studied the flustra, the alcyonium and 

 'the tabalaria, and declared them all to belong to the animal kingdom. 

 Until that time everything of the kind, coral included, was believed 

 to be vegetable. A learned man had proved to his own satisfantion 

 that coral was a plant, and that the eight tentacles of the polype 

 were the petals of the flower. In the field of natural history, as in 

 many another, it is very interesting to see how slowly but surely 

 truth has won the day. 



There is a whitish thing that is often seen on some the finer 

 sea weeds, nearly covering them with a scaly crust. It is one of a. 

 large u umber of things allied to a flustra and is called Lepralia 

 Very many of the soft-bodied animals live in shells, as see our 

 friend the snail. A shell is, to my mind, a thing which, even when 

 not elegant in form or bright in colour, may well fill us with wonder 

 and admiration. Its value to a soft defenceless creature is evident, 

 but how is it made? Molluscs are provided with a kind of thick 



