28 
ANIMAL LIFE ON THE 
often as many as six inches in length and as many in 
circumference. 
This shellfish is well known along our AVestern shores 
by the name of the " Horse Mussel," or by the more 
familiar name of the Clappie Doo ; but how this last 
appellation has originated we ha.ve never heard intelligently 
explained. We suspect, however, that the shyness of the 
creature in clapping up or closing its valves when it finds 
itself approached, along with the shape of the shellfish, and 
the black, white, and lead coloured markings of the 
shoulders of the valves, particularly the dead ones, resem- 
bling very much some of the species of the domestic pigeon, 
has something to do with the matter. Before the light of 
intelligent observation had penetrated into many of the 
now known secrets of the creatures of the deep, it was 
very common to associate, both in name and origin, what 
was observed in the sea to have a resemblance to the 
things and creatures of the land. In the Barnacle, for 
example, we have the fabled origin of the goose or sea 
fowl of that name, from which it was long supposed to 
spring, believing it to be the embryo of the goose, from 
the fancied resemblance of the movements of the fish in 
the shell to the embryo of the bird in the egg. An ancient 
writer declares it to be ''a thing of form like lace or silk, 
finely woven as it were together, which is the first thing 
that appeareth when the shell gapeth open ; next follows 
the legs of the bird hanging out, and at last the bird, in- 
creasing in size, hangeth only by the bill, and in a short 
space thereafter it cometh to full maturity and falleth into 
the sea, where it gathereth feathers and groweth to a fowl 
bigger than a millard, and lesser than a goose." For 
generations this notion enjoyed a wide-spread belief. I 
myself have, in my boyhood, heard it discussed and 
