18 Beautiful Shells. 



face, form a fruitful soil for the nourishment of 

 vegetation. The character of the testaceous de- 

 posits, too, enable geologists (as those who study 

 the nature and structure of the earth are termed), 

 to come to important conclusions on many points 

 connected with the subject of this investigation. 

 And if we include, as the subject of our book 

 allows, the inhabitants of shells, how wide a field 

 of usefulness opens before us. How many thou- 

 sands of our industrious population depend wholly, 

 or in part, upon the capture and sale of shell-fish 

 for their support. In some parts, as the western 

 and northern Islands of Scotland, they have in 

 times of scarcity afforded sustenance to the dwellers 

 on the bleak and barren shores, who but for them 

 must have perished. But of all this we shall have 

 more to say when we come to describe the different 

 members of the testaceous family. We will now 

 offer a few remarks upon 



THE INHABITANTS OP SHELLS; 

 Which belong to that division of Natural History 

 called the Mollusca, from the Latin Mollis — 

 soft; these Molluscous animals, then, are animals 

 having a soft body, and no internal skeleton. You 

 may be quite sure that a Mollush will never break 



