The Animal Creation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ... are furnished with a foot, enabling them to creep about, and by its assistance they construct a cable composed of horny threads, called Byssus, whereby they attach themselves to rocks. The Wing-Shells (Pinna) are remarkable for the fineness of their byssus. When mingled with about a third of real silk it is sometimes spun, and manufactured into gloves, &c., but they are merely objects of curiosity. The true Mussels (Mytilus) are well known to everybody; they frequent mud banks which are uncovered at low water, are very prolific, and attain their full growth in a single year. By means of a strong byssus they fasten themselves to the rocks, where they defy the violence of the storm. "The mussel is the owl of the sea," says Charles Lamb; "Minervans fish, the fish of wisdom. He hears the tide roll backwards and forwards over him twice a day, as the Salisbury coach goes and returns in eight-and-forty hours; but he knows better than to take an outside place on it." The Biver Mussels (TJnio) are met with in freshwater lakes, rivers, and ponds throughout the whole world. In some of them pearls are found which are bright and of exquisite lustre; formerly, there were extensive fisheries of them both in Wales and Scotland. One taken from the river Conway, in North Wales, is to this day honoured with a place in the royal crown of England. The third family of Conchifera embraces The Clams (Chamacea), in which the two sides of the mantle are conjoined so as to leave three apertures, through one of which the "foot" is protruded; a second is for the entrance and expulsion of the water required for respiration, while through the third effete materials are rejected. These two last openings are not prolonged into a tube or respiratory syphon...