182 A NATUBALIST IN CELEBES ch. vil 



chitons whose shells are provided with a number of small 

 eye-spots (Chiton incisus) . As these eyes had never been ob- 

 served before in the living animal, and some conchologists 

 were formerly sceptical about their optical nature, I examined 

 these brilliant little spots with great care and interest. The 

 surfaces of the lenses only are visible without dissection, but 

 they are very clear and transparent, and although I could 

 not detect any rosy (or other) colour in the spots which 

 disappeared after death, I am nevertheless perfectly con- 

 vinced from Moseley's anatomical investigations that they 

 are really true eyes (50) . 



After working some two hours on the reefs in the 

 excessive heat of the mid-day, I was glad to return to the 

 village to dinner. In the afternoon, a boy, who, I suppose, 

 had seen me or heard that I was collecting things on the 

 reefs, brought me a couple of Lingulas. Lingula is a bra- 

 chiopod, and one of the few animals which has been living in 

 this world almost unchanged since Cambrian times. I was 

 particularly anxious to see the animal alive in its native 

 habitat, but I never succeeded. The fact is that the natives 

 are very fond of it as an article of food, and although they 

 would bring me a few specimens now and then for my 

 collection, they were afraid to let me poach on their 

 preserves. 



There can be little or no doubt that it lives near the 

 corals, and it would be really very remarkable if it could be 

 shown that this animal, which has come down to us from 

 such remote epochs, has been all the time an inhabitant 

 of the shallow tropical seas, where, perhaps, the struggle 

 for existence is keener than it is in any other area of the 

 globe. 



The next morning after breakfast Mr. Steller placed a 

 horse at my disposal to take me to his garden in the moun- 

 tains. 



