92 



BOYS AND GIRLS IN BIOLOGY. 



they are called the " mantle" (Fig. 91), and they make 

 the mussel look as though he were dressed in a long 

 oil-silk water-proof with a yellow border. This mantle 

 is made of a thin skin which is almost transparent, 

 looking much like oil-silk, only it is not quite so shiny. 

 In the border are a number of tiny, elastic muscles, 

 which hold the mantle fixed to the shell. In olden 

 times people used to line the walls of their rooms with 

 silken and velvet fabrics, called tapestry — some of it 

 was all embroidered with beautiful pictures ; one kind, 

 called the Gobelin tapestry, is still made in Paris ; when 

 you go there, you .can see them making it. It would 

 not be a bad idea to call this mantel the mussel- 

 tapestry, because it lines the walls of the mussel's 

 house. A brother of the mussel, called the scallop, 

 wears his pretty eyes in the border of his mantle. 

 How funny it would be if your eyes were in the hem 

 of your water-proofs and overcoats ! The mantle has 

 two openings, and around these openings the edge of 

 the mantle is fringed by strong hair-like processes 

 called cilia (Fig. 91), like the eyelash oars of the green 

 water-rowers, but shorter and stronger. The opening on 

 the dorsal, or upper side, is small and oval, and it is 

 called the dorsal siphon — siphon means a tube, or 

 pipe, and after a while you will see why this name is 

 given to the opening. The other opening is larger, and 



