THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



NOVEMBER, 1866. 



ON THE FORM, GROWTH, AND CONSTRUCTION OF 



SHELLS. 



BY THE LATE DE. S. P. WOODWARD, F.G.S. 



Edited from his MSS. by Henry Woodward, F.Gr.S., E.Z.S., of the British 



Museum. 



(With Two Plates, one Coloured and one Plain?) 



Shells are often called the " habitations ■" of fishes, or of 

 marine animals, or snails. Every one has seen the device of a 

 snail, with the motto, " always at home/'' on juvenile letters. 

 The quarrymen of the Cotteswolde Hills go so far as to call 

 some fossils " snail-houses," the same epithet which they apply 

 to empty shells of the common garden snail. The term is not 

 quite correct, for they are more properly skeletons, and we do 

 not "inhabit'-' our bones, though Byron calls the skull a 

 "'tenement," and "the palace of the soul." Nevertheless, the 

 expression is sufficiently indicative of the sense in which it is 

 popularly used, and may pass muster without any further 

 challenge on our part. 



One afternoon last summer we visited the fish-house of the 

 Zoological Gardens, and paused to watch the manoeuvres of a 

 hermit crab housed in a whelk- shell. Just then a lady of 

 distinguished appearance called the attention of her friends to 

 the same truculent animal, and expressed her lively satisfaction 

 at having thus become acquainted with the creature which made 

 that hind of shell ! 



We hope before long to introduce our readers to a better 

 acquaintance with the original fabricator of that common 

 object of the shore, and to show how the forms and patterns 

 of shells are suited to the wants and welfare of their proper 

 owners. But at present we intend to look more especially at 

 certain specimens put together to illustrate the structure of 

 shells in general, and to show their architectural rather than 

 their physiological peculiarities. 



VOL. X. NO. IV. E 



