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It is especially interesting to note that the existence of the species in Australian waters has not hitherto been recorded, the nearest known locality being the Moluccas. In the waters of Florida is a distinct curiosity in the form of an altogether different mollusc which is commonly known as the "bleeding-tooth shell," the gory stains about the base of the tooth being highly significant.
"Yes, mussels of certain waters in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Saxony, Bohemia, and France." "Good! For the future I shall pay attention," replied the Canadian. "But," I continued, "the particular mollusc which secretes the pearl is the pearl-oyster, the meleagrina margaritiferct, that precious pintadine.
The only species afterwards sent to me were Cerithia; but no vigilance sufficed to catch the desired sounds, and I still hesitate to accept the dictum of the fishermen, as the same mollusc abounds in all the other brackish estuaries on the coast; and it would be singular, if true, that the phenomenon of its uttering a musical note should be confined to a single spot in the lagoon of Batticaloa.
Having captured our prize, however, we found that there was some chance of our not being able to get at the mollusc inside; for when the difficulty of opening an ordinary oyster-shell is remembered, the force required to get at the inside of so large a shell as this would be no easy task.
The love of this little man which had not yet learned its value, and was at the service of age and youth alike was to her even as a return of the sea-waves to some unhappy mollusc left stranded to dry at leisure in the sun. But her heart was in a certain sense athirst for the monopoly of his blue eyes.
It is in some such resting-place as this that I have often been privileged to light upon the Lampyris banqueting on the prey which he had just paralyzed on its shaky support by his surgical artifices. But he is familiar with other preserves. He frequents the edges of the irrigating-ditches, with their cool soil, their varied vegetation, a favourite haunt of the mollusc.
Hence a sudden arrest of the entire animal world in its progress towards higher and higher mobility; for the hard and calcareous skin of the echinoderm, the shell of the mollusc, the carapace of the crustacean and the ganoid breast-plate of the ancient fishes probably all originated in a common effort of the animal species to protect themselves against hostile species.
Near it was the large shell of the mollusc on another fire, where Nub had placed it to warm up its contents. "We have fish and fowl; but I wish that we had some farinaceous or other vegetable diet in addition for the sake of our young lady, especially," observed the mate.
You never so much as turn the sixteenth part of an eye in his direction, for even as the oyster-man, should the poor mollusc heave the faintest sigh, is inside with his knife in the twinkling of a star; even as a beetle has but to think of moving its tiniest leg for the bird to swoop upon him, even so will the least muscular interest in your neighbour give you bound hand and foot into his power.
It would afford us not only one, but several meals probably, if the creature inside bore any proportion to his house. I did not know the name at the time, but I afterwards learned that it must have been a specimen of the Tridacna gigas. I have since heard that the shells themselves, without the mollusc, weigh even more than that; indeed, I afterwards saw some in use of larger size.
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