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As soon as they have passed through a state of putrefaction and become dry, they can be easily opened without the danger of injuring the pearl, which might be the case if they were opened when fresh. The shell is then carefully examined for pearls. Sometimes one is found in the body of the mollusc itself, but it is generally in the shell.
One of these I opened at the following lines: "The cuttle-fish Sepia Officinalis is a cephalopodic mollusc whose body includes a spongy organ containing a chylaqueous fluid saturated with carbonate of lime." My pretty little neighbour finds this story very interesting. I beg of her, unless she wishes me to die of mortification, never to read the story of Honey-Bee.
The grounds on which they base that supposition are these: That if you go through the enormous thickness of the earth's crust and get down to the older rocks, the higher vertebrate animals the quadrupeds, birds, and fishes cease to be found; beneath them you find only the invertebrate animals; and in the deepest and lowest rocks those remains become scantier and scantier, not in any very gradual progression, however, until, at length, in what are supposed to be the oldest rocks, the animal remains which are found are almost always confined to four forms Oldhamia, whose precise nature is not known, whether plant or animal; Lingula, a kind of mollusc; Trilobites, a crustacean animal, having the same essential plan of construction, though differing in many details from a lobster or crab; and Hymenocaris, which is also a crustacean.
As in every instance the exact locality, depth and character of habitat of species of Mollusc taken were carefully noted of at the time of capture, much more valuable information elucidating the distribution of shellfish in the Australian seas has been collected during this expedition than was ever before obtained.
She would of course have been very indignant had any one told her that she was stupid. She hated what she called "clever people" and never had them near her if she could help it. She was instantly suspicious of any one who liked ideas or wanted anything changed. With all this she was of an extreme obstinacy and a deep, deep jealousy. She clung to what she had with the tenacity of a mollusc.
These enormous questions would need an army of workers; and we have not one. The fashion is all for the Mollusc and the Zoophyte. While waiting for the fashion to change, I open my harmas laboratory of living entomology; and this laboratory shall not cost the ratepayers one farthing. We are in the middle of July.
The banks of Aripo are not the only localities, nor is the acicula the only mollusc, by which pearls are furnished. They are also collected annually for the sake of the diminutive pearls contained in them. These are exported to the coast of India, to be calcined for lime, which the luxurious affect to chew with their betel. These pearls are also burned in the mouths of the dead.
If, on the other hand, in the frequent case when the shell does not fit its support quite closely, some point, however tiny, be left uncovered, this is enough for the subtle tools of the Lampyris, who just nibbles at the mollusc and at once plunges him into that profound immobility which favours the tranquil proceedings of the consumer. These proceedings are marked by extreme prudence.
Slender as our knowledge is of the earlier evolution of the Invertebrate animals, we return to our Cambrian population with greater interest. The uncouth Trilobite and its livelier cousins, the sluggish, skulking Brachiopod and Mollusc, the squirming Annelids, and the plant-like Cystids, Corals, and Sponges are the outcome of millions of years of struggle.
So that you have all the 'Fauna' reduced, at this period, to four forms: one a kind of animal or plant that we know nothing about, and three undoubted animals two crustaceans and one mollusc.
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