POPULAR COffCHOLOGY. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



The study of shells and their animal inhabitants, is one 

 of the most interesting that can be pursued by a lover of 

 Natural History. If he confine himself to their external 

 appearance, and compare them with the other orders of 

 creation, with reference to the beauties the shells alone 

 present to the eye, he will find that they are inferior to 

 none in form or colour, exhibiting the most exquisite 

 contours, with the most varied and beautiful tints ; if he 

 pursue his examination further, and, without limiting him- 

 self to the exterior, fix his attention upon the living 

 animal, as well as upon the inanimate shell in which it 

 resides, and which it constructs itself, he will be amply 

 repaid by the search. He will find the same harmony 

 existing in all its relations, the same adaptation of means 

 to the end required, the same fitness of the creature for 

 the element in which it is to reside, and the mode of life 

 it is to pursue, as he will trace in the more complicated 

 and apparently more perfect classes of animals. Finally, 

 should he enter into a more scrutinizing investigation, and 

 make it his object to become acquainted with the physi- 

 ology of the animal, apart from its shell, and to pursue its 

 history from its production to its death, following its 



B 



