Part 4

That back part takes fast hold of the post in the shell, so that Mr. Conch will not drop out. On one side of his body he has a hook like a thumb. That is to pull him back into his shell when he wishes to hide.

The front end of the conch is wide and thick. Here we find his mouth. Near his mouth he has two feelers, such as insects have, to touch things.

Where the feelers join his head he has two eyes.

His foot is flat, and is as big as all the rest of his body. It is just the size of the open part of his shell. Why is that?

The shoe on his foot is hard, like horn. When he draws back into his shell, that shoe is his door. It fits close. It shuts him in safe in his shell.

LESSON XXXV.

THE STORY OF MR. CONCH.

The conch or winkle does not like to live in sand, or on hard rock. He likes deep water, where he has some sand and some rock. When the wind blows, and the sea is very rough, he digs his stout foot into the sand near a stone, and holds fast. Then he will not drift on shore.

If he is cast on the shore, he will die. Mr. Conch cannot live out of water.

Mrs. Conch likes some soft sand for a bed for her babes in their queer cradles.

What does Mr. Conch eat?

He eats other shell-fish. He likes to eat oysters. How does he get them?

He goes off to the oyster beds.

He likes the nice young oysters. He picks one up with his foot. You see he uses his foot for a hand as well as for a door. He can spread his foot out very wide. It is very, very strong.

When he has the oyster in his grip, he draws his foot close, as you would shut your hand tight. That breaks up the shell of the oyster. Then Mr. Conch sucks up the oyster at his ease.

The men who own oyster beds do not like him, for he eats many oysters.

Mr. Conch lives a great many years. No one can hurt him in his hard house, and he has all he wants to eat.

His shell is the shape of a large pear. It has a little point at the top, and a long end like a stem. The stem end has a groove in it. His shell has a turn or twist in it, three or four times round. It is of a sand-color, or pale yellow, outside.

Some shells have dark stripes. Inside, the shell is very smooth, and shines, and is of a fine, bright red, or pink, or yellow. It is a very pretty shell.

How does the conch grow? The conch grows from an egg. Most fish lay eggs. The eggs of the conch are in a string. They are left lying on the sand to grow.

What is the conch good for? In some places people like them to eat. Fish and crabs eat the conchs’ eggs and the young conchs. The shells are made into buttons and breast-pins.

The Indians used to make money from the pink part of these shells. They also used the purple part of the round clam shell for money.

LESSON XXXVI.

SEA-BABIES.

Now we must learn more about that string of eggs that Mrs. Conch left on the sand. First it was like a thread with knots tied close together on it. Then it grew to be a yard long. It grew very fast.

The knots grew into little cases, or pockets. They were set close to each other. At the two ends of the string the cases were small, but after three or four small ones, the others were of the size and shape of big Lima beans.

Once I was out on the sand with a boy.

We found a string of this kind. It had been cast up by the waves. It was of a pale straw-color, and like a long curl.

The boy said, “It is a sea-weed.”

I said, “No.” Then he said, “It is some kind of a bean or seed.” I said, “It is fish seed.” Let us look at it.

Each case, or pocket, is flat, and has a rim. The rim has lines in it. In the front edge is a small, round spot, where the case is very thin. This is the door of the case.

The sides of the case are very tough. Let us cut one case open. It is full of white gum, or jelly.

I see in it specks like grains of sand. Here is one more string, far up on the sand. This one is dry, hard, and light. The little thin places are real holes now.

The cases are quite empty. Here is one more string. This, too, is light and dry. But the holes in front are not open.

Shake it. Does it rattle? Yes. Cut a case open.

Why! Each case is full of wee shells! Each shell is as small as a grain of rice! See how thin and white these shells are.

LESSON XXXVII.

MORE ABOUT SEA-BABIES.

Now in these strings you have the whole story. First, the tiny string Mrs. Conch left on the sand grew to be a big string with large cases like these. The small specks in it were to become shells, and the jelly was to be the food of the baby conchs while in the case. There are very many in each case.

They grew and grew. They ate up all the jelly. They were true shell-fish, only very small. Then it was time for them to go out.

They saw the thin skin over the small, round hole. They felt sure that this was their door. They ate off the thin skin, and went into the sea.

The conch lays its egg-strings from March to May.

It lays a great many. In the egg-case the baby shells rock up and down, not on a tree, but on the sea.

This dry string, still full of shells, is one in which the shells are all dead. It was cast on shore when the little fish were too young to come out. That made them all die.

These little things have a hard time to grow up. But if they can live until they are of a good size, they will have a thick shell. Then they will be out of harm’s way, and will live a long time.

But how do these shell-fish grow? Do they pull off their shells when they are too tight, as crabs do?

No. All these shell-fish wear a cloak, or veil. It is by their cloak they grow. Why, how is that? This cloak, or veil, is fine and thin. It is part of the body of the fish, and folds all over it.

This fine cloak takes lime out of sea-water, and with it builds more shell. As the animal needs more room, it spreads out this veil over the edge of the shell, and builds with it new shell. You can see the little rims where the cloak built each new piece. The color and the waved lines on the shell are made by this veil.

So the shell-fish need not change his house. He just builds on more room as he wants it.

LESSON XXXVIII.

ABOUT MR. DRILL.

Here is a small shell-fish. He looks like Mr. Conch, but is not so large. He is quite small. His real size in the sea is not much larger than he is in this picture. His name is Mr. Drill.

His color is dark brown. His shell has ridges on it. The body of the drill is dark green. It has a long tail to twist round in its shell.

The drill does not live alone in a place by himself. A whole host of them live near one another.

The very strangest thing about the drill is his tongue. It is from his tongue that he gets his name.

Did you ever see a man use a file? With it he can cut a hole in a piece of iron or stone. The tongue of the drill is like a file. How is this tongue made?

It is a little soft band that will move in any way, or roll up, or push out. In this fine band are set three rows of teeth. There are many teeth in each row. The teeth are fine and as hard as the point of a pin. We could not see them if we did not use the glass that you were told of.

With this fine tongue the drill can cut or saw a hole in a thick shell.

The drill is very greedy. He eats many kinds of shell-fish. He likes best of all to eat the oyster.

How does he go to work? He cannot break the shell of the oyster as the conch can. No. The way he does is this.

With his tough foot he gets fast hold of the oyster-shell. He picks out the thin, smooth spot called the eye of the shell. Then he goes to work to file his hole. It will take him a long time.

Some say it will take him two days. But he is not lazy. He keeps fast hold and saws away. At last the hole is made clear through the shell.

It is small, smooth, even; no man could make a neater hole. Then he puts into the hole a long tube which is on the end of his cloak or veil. He can suck with that, and he sucks up the oyster till the poor thing is all gone.

LESSON XXXIX.

THE STORY OF A WAR.

When the drill gets on the back of an oyster, what can the oyster do? Nothing. The poor oyster cannot help himself. Does he hear hour after hour the file of the drill on his shell? Yes.

He knows the drill will get in and kill him, but all that he can do is to keep still and wait.

The oyster is not the only kind of shell-fish that the drill eats. When the drill goes after the poor shell-fish that have no heads, he eats them at his ease.

They cannot help themselves. They do not know how to get away from Mr. Drill. The shell-fish that have no heads live in shells made of two parts, like the covers of a book. The two parts are held to each other by a hinge.

It is a bad thing, it seems, to have no head. Without a head who can take care of himself?

But let us see Mr. Drill try a fight with a shell-fish that has a head. Now he meets his match!

He goes to the top of the shell. He makes fast, and begins--file, file, file. The fish inside hears him. “O, are you there, Mr. Drill?”

What do you think the shell-fish does? He draws his body out of the way, and builds up a nice little wall! So, when Mr. Drill gets his hole made, and puts in his tongue--no fish, only a hard wall! Then Mr. Drill also moves along.

He picks out a good place. Once more he goes to work--file, file, file. “O, _here_ you are, Mr. Drill!” And the shell-fish with a head once more pulls his body out of the way, and makes a new wall.

Then Mr. Drill has the same luck as before. Sometimes he gets tired of the war and goes off. Now and then, as he too has a head, he finds a spot where there is no room for the wall. There he makes his hole and sucks out the animal.

You will find very many of the shells on the sea-beach with these pin-holes in them. The holes were made by Mr. Drill on his hunt for food.

But you will now and then find shells, as the thick clam shell, full of holes, like a network. This is not done by Mr. Drill.

Shells and bones are made of two kinds of stuff. One is lime, which is hard like stone. The other is not so hard; it is more like dry glue.

These shells with so many holes are old shells, long dead, and the glue part has gone out of them.

How did it get out? It was bored out by a kind of sponge. Only the lime part is left, like a fine net.

When bones or shells have only the lime part left, they will break and crack like glass. If they have too little lime, they will bend.

For all Mr. Drill has a head, he is not so wise as at first he seemed to be.

He will sit down and make a hole in an old dead shell where no fish lives. Now and then he makes a hole in an old shell, long ago turned into stone. He will spend two days on such a shell as this!

Did you know that bones and shells and plants sometimes turn to stone?

You will some day learn about that strange fact.

LESSON XL.

HOW SHELL-FISH FEED.

Do the shell-fish all feed on other shell-fish? Oh, no. Some of them live on sea-weed. Some of them live by fishing. They catch, from the water, small bits of food, as small as grains of sand.

The shell-fish that live on sea-weed have a long, slim tongue. It is somewhat like that of the drill. The tongue is like a tiny strap.

The teeth are set on it, three or more in a row, like the points of pins. As the teeth wear out from work on the tough weed, more grow.

These shell-fish walk along on their one big foot. First one side of the foot spreads out, and then the other.

That pulls them along. Is it not very slow work? But what of that? All they have to do is to move about and find food.

They can take all day for it. They have no house to build and no clothes to make.

They creep along to a good bed of sea-weed. Then they put out the fine, file-like tongue.

It cuts off flakes of sea-weed for them to eat. They are never tired of that one kind of food.

Even that queer limpet, who sits on a rock and has a shell like a cap, has a head, and a foot, and a tongue that is like a rasp. And he can walk along the floor of the sea.

He can climb up the rocks. The limpet has his own rock and his own hole in the rock. He goes back to his rock when he has had all that he wants to eat.

The world of the sea is as full of life as the world of the land. There is one nice little shell-fish, about as big as a pea. He lives in the sea-weed that grows on rocks. He is brown, or green, or black, or red, or dark yellow.

He can live in the damp weed in the hours when the tide is out, and has left the rocks dry. He eats sea-weed. Let us look at him. He has two little feelers.

He has two wee, black eyes. He has a little snout, like a tiny pig. At the end of this snout is his little mouth. His small, dark foot has a dent in it.

He puts out his wee, file-like tongue, and laps it out and in, as a dog does when he drinks water. The sharp teeth cut off little scales of weed for him to eat. Take ten or more of these little shells in your hand. Each tiny animal draws in his wee foot.

As the little animals hide in this way, put down your ear, and you will hear a faint squeak. It is made by the air in the shells.

LESSON XLI.

REVIEW.

What is a shell-fish?

What three great orders of shell-fish are there?

Did you say there are many kinds?

Name some of the kinds.

What kind of shell do the fish with a head and a foot live in?

Tell me how these shell-fish grow.

Tell me about the conch cradles.

Where do these fish like to live?

Why do they need to wear these hard shells?

Do they change their shells?

How, then, do they grow?

Why are not more blown ashore?

Tell me what they eat.

How do they kill and eat other shell-fish?

Do all fish lay eggs?

How do shell-fish eat sea-weed?

What are shell-fish good for?

What shell-fish is most eaten?

What did the Indians make out of the shells?

Tell me about the veil, or cloak, of the shell-fish.

Tell me more about the foot.

Tell me how Mr. Drill makes war.

Of what are shells and bones made?

How is Mr. Drill’s tongue made?

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Transcriber’s note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. The following printer errors have been changed.

=CHANGED= =FROM= =TO= Page 74: “It of a sand-color” “It is of a sand-color”